She-Knits Mystery Bag, Finished

Here it is. After many a day of knitting and knitting, Emma, the bag, is done. She is put together, and felted! Well, she is almost done. I do want to line her, or maybe I should say dress her. LOL!

I felted the bag in cold water. I know that is a different approach to felting, because you usually throw your felting project into hot or warm water. But, the yarn tails, that had been left inside the bag while knitting, had started to felt already, just by the movement of the bag while knitting. So, I decided that I had better felt in cold water. I was also trying to control the felting of the fair isle design on the bottom. Fair isle knitting can tend to shrink up more than the rest. So, I took it out of the washer ever 5 minutes and stretched that portion. Yes, it was messy and I had dripping water all over. :) But, it was worth it. When the bag finally came out of the washer, for good, I did more stretching and shaping, to form its shape. Then I dug out some OLD tupperware and pulled it over that container for drying. You can see that it is stiff enough for JoJo to sit on top of it and not collapse it. Although it is still a soft sided bag. JoJo doesn't weigh a whole lot.