Mom's Bag

Finished, Felted and Shaved!
Wow! Did this ever need to be shaved. The Noro Silk Garden is 45% silk, 45% kid mohair, and 10% lamb's wool. I am told that it will only felt when carried with another 100% wool that felts. I am sure that it was the mohair that caused the fuzziness - plus, there were these little strings sticking out all over the place from the Silk Garden. After about 45 minutes of shaving, clipping, shaking, shaving again, clipping again and then vacuming (yes vacuming with the wand of my big vacume cleaner) it is just beautiful. The only thing left to do is attach a fastener, probably a magnetic one, as that will be the easiest for my mother to open and close and will help keep her "stuff" in the bag. These are her favorite colors, so I can hardly wait for her reaction at Christmas. One Christmas gift done . . . . . how many more to go???

Mom's Bag Before Felting
This was also very beautiful before felting, but was long and flimsy. Felting sure does the trick. This is the Vintage Bubble Bag out of the Pursenalities book, made just as the directions called for. I used one strand of Cascade 220 in a beautiful Royal Blue, color number was 7818, and carried along one strand of Noro Silk Garden, color number 232, a multi blue, purple and green. The very top is Cascade 220 double stranded with no Noro and the handles are a 5 stitch I-cord, single stranded Cascade. It actually took quite a while to felt it, probably because of the Silk Garden - the Cascade had to do all the work of the felting. If I remember correctly, it took about 45 minutes of agitation in hot water before it was the way I wanted it. I stuffed it with several old small rag towels and plastic to shape it and just sat it aside to dry. Ooala! I am certainly addicted to this felted thing. I have the yarn to make one for myself in some yummy greys, blues and mauves, but I think I will cut the pattern down and make it just a little smaller for me.