A Project 'First'

I've admired for some time the bags and purses that other fiber people have made by knitting something oversized and then deliberately felting it (fulling) to reduce size and increase fabric density.  Like so many other interesting things, I don't actually follow through and do them unless there is an additional reason.

This year our spinning guild held a group challenge called "Bag It!".  Back in November you were to provide 8 ounces of ready-to-spin fiber in a plain brown bag.  The bags were shuffled and handed out to all participants (with the organizers keeping track of whose was whose) who then were to make a bag or vessel by any method they chose and return the item to the original person.  I discovered some lovely Blue Faced Leicester wool dyed in dark shades of blue.  The spinning was quick and fun, but then the yarn sat for some time (*cough*April) until I found a pattern I liked thought I could handle.  (If you don't know of them already, hie thee to Ravelry and join, if only to take advantage of the pattern library.)

The Booga Bag looked pretty easy and I made a few changes  (more rows, more rounds) to make mine a bit bigger than I thought it would be if I strictly followed the pattern.  The pattern calls for you to make I-cord for the handle but making the bag bigger robbed me of sufficient yarn to do that.  Instead I built a small pocket into the inside of the bag and found some nice cording at JoAnn Fabrics to be handles.  And beads - I had to jazz it up with some silver and pearl beads.

I had pictures.  I really did, and it looked great.  Somehow I had a serious brain cramp and erased them to make room for something else. 

The bag was ripped from the recipient's hands collected at the end of the meeting to be included in the guild's display of Bag It items at the September festival. The variety and excellent quality of all the items was amazing and inspiring.  I already put a few more patterns in my Favorites on Ravelry to try some day.   I'll be sure to get a picture of  my bag at the festival and post it here.  I do so few projects - I need to immortalize them in pictures!  Sigh.