The Knitting Martini

After working on it off-and-on since the end of August, I finally finished my Booga Bag. It was my first felted bag and understand the fun of felting. It was a lot smaller than I had expected (I know left it in a little too long), but it was about the size that was mentioned on the pattern page. I made it out of Noro Kureyon (color 148). I liked the deep earthtones of the colorway. I didn’t like the light purple stripe across the body, but I liked the fact that it was the light purple stripe I wound up binding off on.

I followed the pattern to a tee. I used 3 skeins of Kureyon on US 10 1/2 circulars (insert shameless plug for Denise needles here). After reading about the trials and tribulations of those before me on the Knitty boards, I was extra careful about knitting up with this yarn since I read that it was very prone to breaking. It was my first time using a yarn that varied in thickness throughout the skein. At times it was a nice, thick yarn only to suddenly become thin. I’m happy to say that I didn’t break any yarn on the body of the bag. However, my lucky streak didn’t extend to the i-cord handle. Luckily, it broke only after the first couple of rows (about 10-15 sts into it). Once I finished the i-cord (6+ ft. long), I was ready to felt!

I threw the bag and i-cord into an old pillowcase. I didn’t want to use my current zippered pillow cover since they were currently in use by my pillows & didn’t want to worry about the reds bleeding into the white. I just knotted the old pillowcase & threw it the washer. I set the washer to a small load with HOT water in the heavy-duty agitation cycle. I put in a teaspoon of Eucalan and 3 pairs of old jeans. I checked on it every 10 minutes and wound up putting it through 5 10-minute cycles. I probably could have done it in 3-4, but I was having fun. Despite the lavender-scented fabric wash, it couldn’t mask the smell of wet wool! However, during my last check on the felting process, I didn’t re-knot the pillowcase as tight, so it came undone. Everything was OK, except I had little bluish pills from the fraying of my old jeans that stuck to it during the agitation. Pulled them off by hand & it was fine.

My next step was to block it. I looked around the house for something that was close to the shape of the bag. I didn’t have to farther than my kitchen. The Ziploc Freezer economy pack box (extra-big since it was from Costco) was almost the same size as the bag. I wrapped the box in a grocery bag to keep the moisture fom warping the box. It was dry within 24 hours & I attached the i-cord handles.

The picture is a little blurry since I resized it & it lost some of its resolution. Really, it came out pretty cute. My boyfriend was even very impressed that I made it (“You knitted this?!?!”). I had to explain the concept of felting.

Today, it used it for the first time. I was paying at a checkout, pulled my wallet out of my new Booga Bag when the cashier asked “Where did you buy that bag?” Needless to day, I pretty proud to say “I made it.” She was interested when I told her the pattern was available online. She wrote it down carefully, even asking me to spell it out.

I still have some leftover yarn

Maybe I’ll make a small coin purse to match!