Felted totes, befrore and after

Two more of my Stash Buster projects are shown below. The challenge is to see how many one of a kind items I can make just using the yarn from my yarn stash. I'll let you know when I have paired my yarn down enough to move more of it back in to the house from storage :)

My friend Candy suggested that maybe I should show the before and after of a felt purse or tote bag. So since I just finished 2 new felted bags on Friday and I finally have time to blog, here goes.

The first step is to knit a bag from 100 % wool, that has not been treated in the super wash process. The bag is knit on larger knitting needles using a worsted weight yarn. This takes between 30 and 35 hours to knit one tote bag, The tote bags are rather funny to see at this stage. I am 5'4" and the purple bag is almost as tall as I am. The orange bag was taller than I was so the picture is taken as it lays on the floor.

Then I put the tote bags in zippered pillow cases and washed them on a long cycle twice using very hot water at the lowest water setting. The section that was about 3 feet long is now barely 11 inches long. This makes a nice sturdy bag for your small projects or for an evening out. I usualy hang the bags outside to dry, because of Tucson's low humidity. However, these bags had to dry in the house because we had a rare rainy day on Friday.

After they're dry, I trim up any odd bits that don't seem to fit the style of the tote bags. Then they are ready to be photographed to list on my Art Fire shop Handmade~by~Sheri.

Please visit http://www.artfire.com/users/Handmade~by~Sheri to purchase these or any of my one of a kind hand knit items. Thank you for supporting the hand made movement.