More on the Mall of America/Felted Bags

Hi Everyone,

I received a lovely e-mail from Pam Gillette, who was an attendee at the festivies at the Mall of America.  Pam wrote to tell me how much she enjoyed my demo.  It always makes me feel good to hear that.

I discovered that Pam's site www.knottygeneration.com has some great pictures from the fashion show and lots more pictures of the event.  I loved visiting her site, seeing her pictures, but I also loved seeing her creations and reading about her.  Be sure to visit Pam's site, I'm sure that you will enjoy it as much as I did. 

I have been experimenting with Felting over the past few weeks.  I tried it a year or two ago, but did not have a good result.  Then I discovered Patons Classic Wool, and I have been having fun.  I took a class with Nicky Epstein on felted, cut flowers, and that really got me started. 

The first picture is the knitted bag that I made, and attached the felted flowers that I made in Nicky's class.  The second bag was crocheted, and I knit separate petals and leaves, felted them, then sewed them together to create the attached flowers.

Both bags were made the same width and length.  I used one ball of black for each bag.  I used a # 6 knitting needle and stockinette stitch for the knitted bag, a # 8 crochet hook and single crochet, for the crocheted one.   In order to get the crocheted one the exact same length as the knitted one, I had to add a few rows of green and rose to each end (or buy another ball of yarn).  I followed the same process in the washer etc, and you can see that width wise, they both ended up the same, but length wise, the crocheted one did not shrink nearly as much as the knitted one. 

I did this strictly for my own information and to satisfy my own curiosity.  Both fabrics look good, and if you do not knit, felting crochet works just fine.  It does look a little different though, as the knit has a smoother texture, the crochet a rougher texture. 

I love making the flowers, and will experiment a little more with this aspect.

Have a great evening

Margaret