Lucky

Dear Cynthia,

Your shawl sounds beautiful, and you have a great game plan for finishing it on time for the baptism. You probably already know this....I've read in a few places that blocking will increase the size of your shawl by about 33%, so blocking your shawl today would yield close to a 36 inch diameter!

If I was going to give my prototype bag (which I just finished today) a name, I'd have to call it "Lucky", because that's how I feel about the outcome of the whole thing. It began as a hap-hazard color adventure, and I was relying on math alone for estimating the finished size. Really, the whole project was a leap of faith, because so much depended on what would happen during the process of felting it in the washer. Plus, I had only minimal design criteria:

1. It had to fit the handles which I already purchased
2. It had to be sized to carry a knitting magazine and a bunch of other crap

Anyway, here is what it looked like with the knitting completed and looking very huge, ready to be put into the washer (side view):There seems to be a lot of knitting discussion about mitered corners lately, so I thought I'd try some to close up the bottom (view of bag bottom before felting):
After a trip through the washing machine, the new view of the bag bottom and sides:
The "tan" yarn didn't felt very well. It was a "Kool-Aid dying project gone bad", and it was originally a very light color, which I probably shouldn't have expected to felt well. The red yarn which I carried with it shrunk enough, however, to pull it all together, so it just adds a little texture....


But, does it meet my design criteria? Let's see:It holds the latest issue of Vogue Knitting, with room for a lot of crap. Lucky!

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)