Carol mentioned that since she got back from Stitches Midwest, she has been wanting to start a new project. As I mentioned before, I've been working on the Wrap Me Up, which is the wrap design I talked about a week or so ago - the mini afghan stitch sampler, designed by Knitting at Knoon. That is going slowly so I wanted a quicker "instant gratification" type project.
What better for fast and easy than a felted bag? Specifically, a felted bag that has been on my knitting "to dos" for quite some time. It's called the Harriett bag. The original design intrigued me several years ago, but my interest was strongly reignited while visiting a booth called Homestead Heirlooms, a booth of folks from Pewaukee, Wisconsin who make leather handles for bags. These vendors had a modified version that I liked even better, so I'm now working on it. Since I don't have written instructions on how to do this, I'm kind of winging it, though I'm not yet up to the winging part, so I don't know how this will go yet!
The color of the bag is black and brown - classic and versatile. The reason I haven't posted much about it is that I don't want to raise my own (or anyone else's) expectations too high. The bag they displayed at Stitches was a big, gorgeous and all-so-usable carpet bag and I dearly love a good carpet bag. I'm just afraid to expect TOO much because the last few bags I've made have been not nearly up to my expectations, so I am trying to lower my hopes so that if it doesn't turn out well, I won't be too disappointed.
The best thing about this new bag is the expert way they did the handles. Years ago, I made a wonderful carpet bag called Constant Companion - seen here in brown and cream.
I loved that bag and still store large quantities of yarn in it, but the i-cord handles are way too stretchy and flimsy to carry around comfortably. I now really dislike icord as a purse strap. My new bag will have sturdy leather handles. I'll show more as I progress.
Again, don't want to raise expectations - yours or mine. So here's to LOW expectations and hopefully purse-pleasing results.
2 comments:
If it should go dreadfully awry, it can come travel with me.
Already, I'm realizing that I need to rip it out and start over again. I want to make it bigger - way bigger - and I want to use double stranded worsted weight as I did before on the Constant Companion and Buttonhole Bag. So it's off to the frog pond and a new start for the bag. Grrrr. I knit so slow that I hate starting over but it's a MUST or I won't be happy with the bag.
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