Monday, December 6, 2010

No sew zipper bags

Following along with TECHKnitter's A little felted purse KAL (part 1, part 2), earlier today I was delighted to find the the final installment posted.  It covers flattening the bottom of the bag, felting by hand and making a zipper pull.  In the meantime, I'd started a second bag. I improvised upsizing the bag for version 2 because I realized I'd rather be able to put my whole hand inside. From there I just kept making it up as I went along.

There were some big blunders, and a few decisions that could have been better, but it's been a lot of fun. I started off using the wrong dark green zipper and didn't realize that until I was 3/4 done with binding off the top trim. That zipper was an even less ideal match than the one used here..

Because of my camera situation I am reduced to whatever pictures I can manage to take with the computer.

Actually, the color in these is pretty good. It'd be nice to have less hands and a more interesting background, though.


I'm still working on knitting the bottom of the second, larger bag and haven't yet felted the first bag. I just wanted to stop here and put some time in on a project that is a gift for someone else. I had a thought that these could make cute gifts, but I'd have to put some planning into the colors and possible designs. So far my commitment to the project has just been to buy zippers that match yarn I'm willing to use for the trim at the top and planned to use up some of my supply of wool on hand. Which mostly means only colors that I'd pick and not colors that really appeal to or reflect family and friends. It could be especially nice to make sets of nested bags, but then there's additional thinking and figuring and also multiplying the work by about three times.

The project I stopped for would be Santa Claus and the Mrs. I have to take long breaks from it because I'm using a small hook and working tightly, which really tends to wear on my hands. Oh, my! I just realized that I didn't take and pics yet of Santa's hat. It's not quite finished, but there's enough of it to be worth a glimpse anyway.

I'm thinking perhaps it was a bad idea to work a stranded pattern in something I'm going to felt lightly. Of course, strands on the inside are going to be great for snagging so that sort of demands a lining now. oh well! Besides that, I could have done a better job of arranging where I was putting the designs on the bag. It just didn't occur to me to put a stranded color pattern on the bag until I got to the teal striped (working downward from the top). The two colors in the hard to see pattern are ones that I love together, but they are not very distinct in such a small pattern. Actually, the color work is the chart from Latvian Fingerless Mitts by Veronik Avery in Knitting Classic Style: 35 Modern Designs Inspired by Fashion's Archives


The smaller, original bag has a bottom and only needs felting and the zipper pull. I realized after completing the knitting and starting the body of the 2nd bag that I'd misunderstood the instructions. Instead of having 19 rows total, including the stripe, I had 19 rows after the stripe. I'll always find a way to do something wrong.

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