Yeah I’m totally making that up. But it is friday and I have not one, not two but THREE finished projects to show off. Bithday girl got her purse set and seems to like it a lot so now I can share them all. Just call me the little hedgebag lady.

Meet the Tiki Pinky, Red Lopi Marsupial, and Firenze Rolltop Purses.

The Firenze Rolltop Purse is very loosely based on this pattern - mostly the idea of how many stitches to cast-on, to knit a purse in the round, and have two handles. Other than that I was a loose cannon.

I decided to take advantage of the rolling that happens with stockinette stitch - by knitting up in the round then adding eyelash yarn to the last several rows where the roll would happen and sewed up the bottom. Then I knit a short and wide rectangle with a buttonhole for the top and made two i-cords (my very first i-cords ever!), sewed them all and a button (also from Joann) to the body, and lined the purse and top closure with some fabric I’d bought in a cheap fat quarter at Joann.

The fact that these greens (including the green in the eyelash) matched was sheer chance - I had not bought any of them with the others in mind. But when I started putting ideas for this purse together it hit me just how well they all matched.

This purse is not felted, and is very stretchy and flexible. The body is knit with some sort of 75% acrylic 25% wool blend (very probably wool-ease chunky by Lion in charcoal. The label fell off almost right away so who knows.) from the very early yarn shopping days where I could find only acrylic blends, namely, before I discovered Fiesta’s Outlet and Village Wools.
The eyelash is Firenze - a wool/nylon eyelash yarn from Plymouth (bought at Village) and I have to say, it’s quite fun to knit with and the colors are just beautiful. Unfortunately I don’t remember the color number for the Firenze and the label seems to have been swept up with the big Spring Clean (that’s limping along).

I didn’t have much of the wool-ease left but enough to want to do something with it so I whipped up a silly little cellphone cozy with some stripes of homespun that, also surprisingly, matched the eyelash yarn. There was just enough fabric left to line it. It turned out to be so dorky-looking I debated up until Wednesday to even send it with the other two. It’s sort of a knit item that only a mother could love. I mailed it anyway.

There was enough of the eyelash yarn to make a matching scarf. I had tried knitting the eyelash with other yarns, like many different configurations of the homespun and even a few lamb’s pride I had leftover from the ipod case. But nothing made that the colors in that Firenze “pop” like the darker black and greys. And I had some pretty nice soft black wool (that needed a good bath, it was kind of smelly) from the estate sale last month. So into the bath with some baby shampoo and up on a hanger to dry went the estate sale wool. Even here in the desert (where felted items dry overnight) it took two days for that stuff to dry.

I wanted to make the scarf long so it had to be fairly thin. It’s knit in a plain old stockinette to match the rolled brim on the purse. It feels like a boa, but doesn’t make me want to sneeze like a real feather boa. The wool is nice and warm and the eyelash softens the scratchiness of the wool. Ms. Birthday is going to have a warm and fashionable neck this winter.

Altogether I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve made so far. Who knows why I’m on this purse kick and no one is more surprised than I that the most fun part for me is adding the little finishing details. I can see why people are so crazy about this eyelash stuff it’s pretty neat. Although I kind of get the feeling I just learned to drive with the eyelash yarn equivalent of a Maserati so we’ll see how the other stuff feels eventually. For now I have other, non-eyelash, items on my plate.

Techniques learned with this project - what it’s like (fun) to knit with eyelash, i-cords (totally quick and easy to do), how to line a purse from the inside out so stitches can’t be seen, to trust my instinctual color buying instincts and try putting things I wouldn’t expect to match together, finishing with quirky details (like lining with almost silly fabric and embroidering a flower-like thing with wool around the buttonhole to reinforce the lining) is FUN!

The Marsupial Red Lopi Tote is the pattern from hello yarn’s Fulled Lopi Tote pattern - I knitted it several inches longer because I wanted to be able to fit a lot of stuff in it. I had bought three skeins of Reynold’s Original Lopi - two red and one natural so I had enough wool left over to make a pouch and attach it to the inside with an i-cord like in Mema’s Marsupial Tote pattern in Stitch n Bitch. I made the pouch a bit bigger than the pattern - I shaped and dried it on a double checkbook holder if that’s any indication of size.

The lopi fulled beautifully in the washing machine. I even like the fuzzy halo around it, miss “oh my god I have to shave that”. I was a bit nervous about attaching the i-cord to the purses before felting but I did and it was just fine - I’d read somewhere that larger items felt faster than smaller items and it’s true. It ran through two cycles - and with the amount of red fuzz produced, I can’t emphasize using a pillowcase strongly enough! The lighter natural color felted just fine - I don’t think any bleach had been used on that yarn - I’ve heard bleaching sometimes inhibits the fibers from felting together.

Both pouch and purse are lined with a really funny el-cheapo red and yellow plaid cotton fabric remnant from Joann.

I took this purse to the fiber fiesta yesterday and got all kinds of compliments on it. It holds a LOT of stuff and the handles are flexible enough to go over my arm. I might end up having to shave it after all - the fuzz is starting to pill. I have enough shedding things in my life.

Techniques learned from this project: Slip, Slip, Knit (used with k2tog to make a flat bottom), three needle bind-off, single cast-on (for the bottom of the handles), sewing on snaps

Tiki Pinky is from this pattern from Joann using Lion Brand Landscapes yarn in Rose Garden.

The bamboo handle is from Joann, as was the fabric remnant I used to line the inside. I have ordered a couple of bamboo O rings from an ebay store to make the scarf into a belt.

I knitted it a bit larger than the pattern called for, using about one and a half skeins for the purse, and one and a half for the belt/scarf. Both were felted together in a pillowcase using the washing machine on hot with two pairs of old jeans for agitation and a capful of baby shampoo (we were running out of laundry detergent). I think I only ran one cycle.

The yarn is 50% wool and 50% acrylic so it will never felt completely. I like the colored pebbly effect that is produced. I think the garter stitch contributed to the textures.

This was an extremely quick knit (both the purse and the scarf were finished in about a day) and it’s a pretty cute little purse.

Techniques learned from this project: picking up stitches (for the handle straps), sewing the handle straps to the bamboo handles correctly (this was the hardest part for me)

There are lots LOTS more pictures in the photojournal, including some cute ones of a fully recovered Melon

Melon’s doing great! She’s still not interested in wet food but she will eat treats, and has shown interest in human food. At this point I let her eat whatever the hell she wants - if she wants some fried shrimp it’s fine with me as long as she eats something. Otherwise she’s active, hasn’t been going off to sleep in obscure places, and has been demanding attention at her regular intervals.