Monday, April 30, 2007

Market Squares Felt 2

Well, I managed to get a chance to try felting the bag in a top loader washing machine. Put a few pairs of jeans in and a towel (prob not a good idea), and the bag and straps were in a fine mesh bag. I set the machine to hot water and put some gentle soap in. I did not manage to catch it before the spin cycle but it seems to have been fine.

The bag shrank more and the fabric is thicker and stronger. Still a bit floppy but much better. I attached the straps using nylon thread and backed the attachment point with a button on the inside. I don't have a closeup of the felted fabric but here is the bag:

marketbagf2

Cool and much closer to the picture of the finished product in the pattern book.

8 comments:

laprincessa said...

Looks GRREAT! I love the colors you chose. I hope to get to this bag one of these days. I have a ton of socks planned first, though. I can't stop buying that beautiful hand-dyed sock yarn!


Lisa in Dallas from Knitting Novices

Notadiva said...

Your bag looks great! Congratulations.
Jennie in Baltimore

Dragonarc said...

Thanks for the kind words.
Of course you can't see in the pics but I can see my inexperience in entrelac showing in the final felted version. Specifically I did not always manage to pick up stitches at the corners so the squares don't always connect and look a bit odd.
But for a first effort it came out surprisingly well.

Dragonarc said...

Lisa -
I have bought some lovely hand-dyed sock yarn too. But I haven't made any socks!

I am actually pretty hard on my socks so I am a bit worried that I will make something nice and ruin them almost immediately. :-)

One day I will make some socks even if it is meant for someone else.

Nancy @ the Jersey Shore said...

your bag is really nice! I want to do that bag, I actually asked about it recently on the bag-a-holic group. I had some concerns on the band. but...I think I can do it. you did great. Love the colors, and it felted lovely. Jeans and a towel are what you're supposed to use, you did good!

anunmaker said...

Your bag looks great! I love the colors! I used a bucket to get the inital shape on mine, then hung it over a door, stuffed it with old walmart bags and put some weight in it to stretch the handles a bit.

The lovely thing about felting is that if you make a mistake in the knitting, it will usually go away in the felting! Guess I have no excuse in avoiding fair isle anymore!

Dragonarc said...

Nancy-
The jeans are the recommendation but avoid the towel. It might be okay if you put your bag into a pillowcase or zipped pillowcase since the lint from the towel won't get onto the bag. Since I had hand felted I thought not alot of lint would be created by the bag itself so I just had it in a mesh bag. The lint from the towel did get onto the bag and was annoying to remove.

Dragonarc said...

arunmaker -
I have wanted to try fair isle myself. But my stockinette tension is still too inconsistent.
Once I can get my tension to be predictable I would love to try a real pattern in fair isle. I have done a couple of hats with made up patterns for a charity donation. It was definitely interesting!