The Shrinking Bag

There is a lady at work that has shown some interest in knitting, and we have done a couple of projects together. She has completed a pair of mittens, which her daughter grabbed for herself almost before they were off the needles, and she is now working on a pair for herself. I have shown her a wonderful thrift shop that has needles and sometimes some good yarn. We have been looking for some wool to work with, and she told me the other day that she has some on hold at the store. I went with her to the shop, and to look around myself.

She didn’t have just some wool on hold. She had a huge bag of 100% unspun wool rovings!! I had made a purchase several months ago of 14 wheels of the stuff, and she had even more! What a lucky girl! Of course, if I had found it first, I would have snapped it all up immediately!

So we have decided on doing some felted bags with it. I started working on one myself first, to show her how it would work. I don’t have circular needles large enough, so have to use my straight 10mm needles. As you can see, I wanted to work it in the round, so I had to do some double knitting. For the most part, it is rather easy. I am using three strands of the unspun rovings -- they come apart easily with a bit of tension, but I'm learning to loosen up. There is only one little mishap, but easily fixed. I threw in some colour and may dye it later on for something more. I haven’t decided yet if I will knit a flap for it and if I will make any handles or not. I also don’t know how deep to knit it, because I don’t know how much it will shrink in the felting process. I have done a small bag before, and shrinkage was a factor, but not a lot.

I am still working on those socks. For some reason, I am having a lot of trouble with the heel flap. That is because I ventured off the well-trodden path and was determined to use the Eye of the Partridge heel – for some reason, it is not working right for me. Oh, well.