It is complete.

My Rose Garden Tote is now complete. After one more rearranging of the pieces, and the addition of a few more flowers it was on to the final assembly.  An hour or so of stitching while lying on the floor in front of the bag so as not to disturb the placement was all it took to end up with this:

Now it was on to the felting!  Two wash cycles which included a pair of ragged jeans, some old gym shoes for extra agitation, and two days of drying resulted in this:

She is beautiful, yes?  Wow, I am really impressed with myself right now.  This tote turned out far, far better than I could have imagined it would be. I love it.  The felting process shrunk the bag down to 16 inches tall and 15 inches wide, a most perfect size.  All that worrying for nothing! 

Thanks again to everyone for their kind comments and advice, especially Crochetbug.  To do this, I relied heavily on her blog posts and notes of her adventure creating this bag.  A special thanks to you, madame.  Now I think I shall go see about finding another project to felt.  Enjoy the day, everyone!

The sewing is about to begin!

After much back and forth, and some more back and forth, the handles are now attached and the pieces arranged into something pleasing to my eye.  Being that this is Easter Sunday and there are festivities planned, I'll probably not have the assembly completed today as I had hoped.  At least that gives me one more day to avoid the inevitable felting!  That part still makes me nervous, no matter the amount of encouragement and excellent advice I have received since yesterday.  Thanks ladies! 

The bag with curlicues:

 Now the leaves:

 And the roses:

I was really unsure of the clementine orange, but it really has added a nice contrast to the other colors.

A soon-to-be brand new bag(lots of pics)

I have yet another bag in the works.  This one takes me a bit out of my comfort zone because instead of just whipping it up with good old Red Heart Super Saver, this one is 100% wool!  Yes, my first felting project is on it's way.  The pieces are finished and waiting to be assembled.  My apprehension at doing the actual felting process is holding me back from adding another FO to the list for 2011.  I know that it's not the end of the world if it doesn't come out perfect, but what if it gets ruined in the washer and is completely unusable?  All that beautiful yarn wasted!  Well, it wouldn't be the first time a project has been trashed and I'm sure it will happen again so on with the assembly!

The pattern:  Rose Garden Tote

The yarn:  Stitch Nation Full O' Sheep in Plummy, Thyme, Meadow, Honeycomb, Clementine, Peony, and Poppy.

The pieces of the bag to be:

 Currently measures 21" wide and 19" tall in its unfelted state.

The leaves and flowers:

I'm going to take my time putting this together because I don't have much experience working with pure wool and I really want this to be a thing of beauty.  Not that I doubt my finishing skills, which are pretty sharp, it's that this is one of those projects that mean more than others.  And with that, I'll call it a night!  Enjoy your Easter Sunday everyone!

A productive Sunday afternoon

So winter came back today.  It actually snowed for a few minutes.  Being a lifelong Michigander, you'd think I wouldn't bat an eyelash at this, but I wanted to cry.  I am so sick of winter and dreary weather!

There was nothing and I mean nothing short of a disaster that was going to get me out of my apartment today, so I had to find something to do.  I made some cute dishcloths that I found on a lovely blog called Cozy Things:

Pattern can be found here: Primrose Dishcloth

Then I made a most interesting pin cushion.

That pattern can be found here: Auntie Wainwright's 1-2-3 Pin Cushion.


Throughout the day, I also worked on my sewing box inspired granny blanket.  Sixty-eight squares done and thirty to go!  It looks so much nicer now that I remade the squares with green in them.  The new green looks fabulous!

The old squares will not go to waste, though.  They will be made into a pillow.  Pictures of that soon.  Well, back to work while I'm still feeling inspired.  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone!

Stash control and an apron!

Happy Sunday!  I didn't realize I had gone so long between posts.  Again.  Sorry about that.  I get so hung up reading what everyone has been doing that posting is forgotten because I get busy clicking all the links and adding to my already-too-long project 'To-Do' list. 

Anyway, I have done some things.  I'm currently tatting a new doily which should be ready for show-and-tell by next weekend.  The last doily I was working on, Tattyhead's 'Star Attraction' is lost!  It just disappeared in the Great Unknown, tatting bag and all!  Very sad about that.  That bag was handmade for me by a friend.  Back to the beginning for that one, I guess.  The loss of the thread annoys me, too.  It was Venus 40 thread bought at a trade show.  If anyone knows of a site in the U.S. it can be purchased, please let me know.

On the crochet front, I just completed a new stash bag using some stash yarn.  A concept that never occurred to me before, seriously.  Logic, it's not for me, I guess!  :D

The bottom is simply rounds of single crochet with increases of six per round.  The outermost round is 144 stitches.  The bag itself is the Peacock Stitch from Crochet Inspiration by Sasha Kagan.  Three rows of sc for the top decreased by twelve each row to keep it from curling too much and straps made of single crochets to a length that pleased the eye.  Nearly two skeins of Red Heart Super Saver in Frosty Green went into the construction of my new stash bag.  It nicely holds seven 7 oz. skeins of yarn.  Not too shabby.

And a quickie project for the kitchen was this Granny Square Apron found HERE.  A couple hours  and some Sugar 'n Cream yarn was all this one took.  I love it!

Look!  It's me showing off some of my new skinny-ness!  

The granny square blanket inspired by my sewing box is currently undergoing a revamp.  The green I was using is just wrong, wrong, WRONG! It drags the whole thing down, but instead of banishing it to the closet, I am reworking all the green squares with the green I was originally going to use.  Always go with your first instinct!  Something I never learn.  Later today, I should have something to show for that. 

Well, the sun is shining and it's nearly 80 degrees today so I am going to take a project outside and enjoy it.  Hope you all do too!