Latest Felted Project

Here's the latest thing off the needles: a felted backpack in olive/dusty brown made from Dale of Norway's Heilo.

Now, I really enjoy felting -- because you can have such fun with it. If you'll notice, I have a felted I-cord drawstring to close the bag. Once I felted everything and put it together, I needed to trim the cord as I'd made it too long. I took that cord, made a loop, sewed it to the inside of the bag and now I have somewhere to clip my keys! I also added a small, button-flapped coin pocket on the outside and a long, multi-pocket piece on the inside.

The straps are doubled, 10-stitch wide (like a really wide I-cord) and knit right onto the backpack (from the base to just under the flap at the top). Knitting them on (altho a bit more cumbersome than knitting them separate and sewing later), ensures a good strong bond to the backpack. The "X"s at the top are more decoration than for utility.

Here's the bag with one strap done and the pickup for the second strap. Here you can also see the pre-felted size. It was HUGE! The felting will shrink the knitting (so you can't see stitch-definition) about 40% (with more shrinkage in the length than the width). The final product -- as you can see above -- is a nice, wide bag that will be used by me ALOT!