Showing Off: Valentine Tote

I am going to brag on myself a little here.

I saw a pattern for a square and turned it into a felted tote bag. How cool is that?

Not only is that cool.. I used Tunisian and did lots of color changes.. whoopee!!
Based on the December Square from the Stitch to Win contest at CrochetToday : Pyschedelic Heart. I was also a maverick in that I used TKS instead of TSS.

You might have to register to be able to see the pattern, but it's easy and unobtrusive. I had to enlarge the graph to be able to see where to make the color changes, which means I had to d/l an editor for my foxit pdf reader, but once I had gotten that accomplished, the rest was gravy.

(I did write to coats and suggest that they make the graph larger and on a separate page for those of us with impaired eyesight.. or make the graph in black and white and label the squares p, r, o for the pink, red, orange colors.. they wrote back thanking me for suggestions and offered to send me all the patterns. No telling if they'll take my ideas and use them, but at least I'm getting all the patterns already printed out for free. I'm happy.)

I didn't have any orange wool, so I used white. I know white sometimes doesn't felt as well as other yarns, so that made me nervous.


Here's one side:


Another side:


Another thing that made me nervous was all the color changes.. would they hold together during felting?

Here it is this past weekend, 99% complete, waiting for handles and to be seamed up.


This morning. I finished making handles. Ran out of enough red to make handles and finish off edge, so used some hotpink too. I think it actually looks nice this way.



Just another photo. Prefelted the body measures about 11" wide by 14.5" tall.. about the size of a legal sheet of paper.



I threw it in the machine with a tiny bit of Gain liquid detergent, hot water and permanent press cycle. (We have soft water..so I can get by with tiny bits of soap). I stopped the machine at the end of the wash cycle before it spun.



A better angle where you can see the handles. I'm not sure if I like the short handles. If I were plannning on keeping it, I might redo them.




The finished size is about 12" high and about 9" wide. Not exact measurements cause I measured while it was stuffed with plastic bags drying.

What do you think? I think I love it!!

Felt-it Felting

It's just my luck. About the time I discover a yarn, the company takes it out of production. Such is the case with Caron and it's Felt-it yarn (actually, I think I'm beginning to notice that Caron is rather quick to discontinue yarns.. or is that only my imagination?)

Here is a little tote that I made with 3 skeins of Caron's felt-it. I'm pretty sure the colorway is called Wildflowers, but mine doesn't have as much cream in it as the colorcard at Caron shows.

I had 3skeins and it was barely enough.. but would've been enough if I hadn't experiemented with doing the handles in a different manner and messed up some of the yarn.

I was so short that one of the side seams wasn't stitched securely enough and it came apart during the felting process. I had to stitch it back together while still wet with a totally different wool.. but I don't think it shows very much.

Actually the mend makes it even more unique and one of a kind. ::grin::

Without further ado.. here are the pictures.



Mended area

Postfelting

Prefelting


I can't give out the pattern, it's based very heavily on the Felted Tunisian tote class taught by Kim Guzman. You can visit her group at Ravelry or one of her websites, CrochetKim or Wips'NChains. Perhaps she might agree to assist someone, but I cannot share it, so please don't ask me.

Use it up

Being raised by Depression era parents, one of their mottos was "make it do, use it up, wear it out".

I'm using it up.

This is from yarn from my stash... Paton's Canadiana in School Bus Yellow, Deep Orange and Orange Salsa (discontinued variegated). Even more economical, all were bought on sale when Hobby Lobby was getting rid of their Canadiana. Too bad they no longer carry it.. I've gotten to love it.. it's a great yarn.




clickable

Stitches used:

Closed Shell (5dc), Wave, Star Stitch (also called Marguerite Stitch), Closed shell (6dc), Somerset Stitch, a stitch that I don't know the name of..kind of a spike stitch.., trinity stitch, forked halfdouble, Closed shell (5dc), Wave stitch, reverse wave, Catherines Wheel, a row to end the catherines wheel .. making an even row, star Stitch, two rows of sc, Odd forked Halfdoubles, a row of sc, then reverse sc around the edge and inside the handles.

Most of these can be found at various places on the web if you're not familiar with them. Others I got out of my Harmony Guides (300 crochet stitches and 220 more crochet stitches) books.

I'm still not quite satisfied with the handles on this one, but decided I'd go ahead and leave this and improvise something different for the next tote. Yes, there's another version of this brewing in my head.

What do ya'll think? Other than the bright colors.. hehehee.. can't miss this thing could ya?

I used about 1 skein of the yellow and orange and 1/2 skein of the variegated. I still have more yellow and orange and some green I bought on ebay.. a little more expensive than what I paid at HL.. but not much. Considering gas prices.. it was probably a huge bargain for me since HL is 40 miles away.

Yet another felted Waves of Color tote

Can you stand another one? I think I'm getting a little better at this. I'm beginning to learn how to adjust the stitches to get what results I want.... This one unintentionally turned out in a wedge shape.. which I kinda like!

All pics clickable of course.



stitch definition prefelting




Showing size of bag prefelting. (it probably shrank at least by 1/3..I need to get a pic with a sheet of paper to show the after size)



Post felting but pre shaving




After a Shave





The pattern is from one that was previously posted gratis on Crochetville.. however it's no longer available. At first just the pattern was taken down, but now, the whole thread where we discussed making of the bag is unavailable.

I'm hoping that this means that the designer is moving towards publishing. She's a very talented person and I hope that's what the disappearance of (all of her) patterns means.. and not something bad.

And I owe huge thanks to a couple of generous crocheters who sent me Paton's Leaf Green wool when I ran out at almost the end of the bag. THANK YOU LADIES!

Waves of Color Tote

Literally, this is just off my hook. Finished and woven in the ends, but not yet lined.






Made from some of the scraps from the Diagonal Hues Afghan shown in an earlier post (G hook and "I Love this Yarn" from Hobby Lobby).

I plan to try it again soon, but in cotton.

Here's the pattern link, if someone else wants to try it.