One of my knit felted purses, custom ordered. Almost finished with needle felting the Rose.

Purse 1 - knit felt, with needle felted rose. This is made in a heather pink with burgandy stripes knit into the fabrick.

I sold this purse last week, and got 4 purse orders by leaving the sold purse on my display table.

The purse below is my newer version of Purse 1.

The order was for a lighter pink with texture (and of course another needle felted Rose).

The Rose needs a little touch up and the grommets need to be added for the strap and walla, a duplicate, in lighter pink. I discovered a new method with this purse. I knit together wool, alpaca and acrylic yarns throughout! The acrylic yarn didn't felt, and that is what makes the nubbies all over the purse. Here's a close-jup pic of the knit piece before felting.

The Light Pink is Alpaca
The darker Pink is wool, and the white with pastels is Acrylic - I'm always amazed at how felting blends to colors ... love experimenting with this, out of over 40 items I've made I've only had one flop (I didn't know I wasn't using wool yarn for a large part of the item, bummer)

Purse Straps - How-To - Step-by-Step

One of my most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) for making my purses is, "How do you make the straps?"

I made a video on You Tube showing how to make an i-cord strap.


KNIT AN I-CORD VIDEO

This can be found to the left under YouTube videos also.



Great example of an i-cord strap after felting and attaching it to the bag via grommets.


Another style of strap is a flat strap from side to side. Knitting each row right side and wrong side until the strap is 1/3 longer than you want the finished piece (if you're felting it). Also, you'll need to make it about 1/4 wider than you want the finished piece to allow for side-to-side shrinkage. If you like make it even narrower and pick up stitches all along the length of the handle on either side and knit a row in a contrasting color. This is the technique I used in the purse at the top of my blog.







Here are a few close up pics of handles I've made in that fashion. Notice the contrasting or highlighting colors.

These were finished by knitting one row with the contrasting color, then picking up the first row while casting off, a "Tuck" row.

How to Knit an i-cord, step-by-step video!

I finally did a video knitting an i-cord.

After casting on 3 stitches, move them to the left needle, knit the 3 stitches and move them back to the left needle, repeat. This causes the yarn to wrap around into a tube.

Go to this link to see my YOUTUBE video.

If you don't know how to cast-on or how to hold your yarn to get started, check out www.knittinghelp.com

Hits, Visits, Pages, Unique Visits, Blogs, Bloggers all that stuff.

I didn't know any of these terms till about 18 months ago. A hit meant something totally different growing up with sisters, you ducked. A hit when I was caught up in the 60's and 70's hippie stuff meant something totally different. Visits on the other hand meant quick clean up the house, company is coming. Unique is a word I had to define in a verbal spelling quiz when I was in grade school (that's elementary school now - I think)...my definition was "one in a million." I spelled it right!! Bloggers woulbe be right up there with cloggers or people who danced but were blogged down about some crazy thing so their metabolism was sluggish ... I don't know. But the first few Blogs I remember ready were so heady and technical, I was searching in all the wrong places, probably designing a web page, that I though Blogging was going to only be for executives, white collar people, (heard of green collar people?), whatever happened to the collar anyway.

So now that I've defined my dilemma, I'm saying all that to say this. I really enjoy having a blog. I have officially went over 20,000 hits to my web page I average 430 some hits a week, and get unique visits over 15 a day, people look at more than just my current post, they go through several pages

The most common hit to all of my posts is the i-cord instructions. I-Cord, that is a chinese rope, sortof, a way of knitting a strong cord with yarn, the process is pretty simple, cast-on 5, *slip all the stitches to the left needle, knit 5 repeat from the asteric. But ths is the most common inquiry, how do do this process.

I may have to do a video of the process, so people don't have to guess how to, when they start researching it. I use i-cord straps on 90% of my purses I make. Check out my youtube video to the right.

Several Purse Straps - I-Cords, Knit and Crochet

Purse Straps

From Left to Right

The RED strap is cast on 13 stitches knit then purl each row consecutively until 1/3 longer than the finished strap you desire, for a large tote with 3 1/2" wide finished strap. This finished strap was knit as a part of the Market Bag.

(See Above) The pink/purple yarn is from my blog banner at the top of this blog. This is an extra (3 times the finished length) long single crochet using all three yarns used in the finished bag. I pinned the top of center of each strap to a piece of styrofoam and did a simple macrame' knot all the way down and tied it off, (made two). These are threaded through grommets attached to the bag.

Next a Blue/Brown/Turquoise Tan strap below is also a cast on flat strap using 7 stitches, then felted, sewn to the bag sides.

A small mauve strap with a pendant attached is single crochet - then felted. This is how I attache jewelry, pendants, etc.

A Thick Felted Brown Tweed strap is the i-cord pattern using 4 strands of the yarn used in the bag along with casting on 5 stitches to start with, making it very dense and strong. After felting while still wet this one had to be stretched a lot giving it more strength when it dried ... it will be carrying a computer bag.

The Blue/Brown/Turquoise and Tan i-cord next is an i-cord made with the same yarn as the color scheme 3 cords to the left and the last one on the right. I held two strands together, Retro Patons Classic Wool and Tan, then did the i-cord method with 4 stitches and felted, stretched, etc.

The Mauve/Purple/Pink thick cords side by side are another computer bag that needed a thick strong cord for the weight.

The brighter Pink/Brown/Burgandy combination is the bag in my youtube video at the bottom of this blog.

The last strap is a computer bag, also in one of my youtube videos. It is extra long and is sewn to the bag starting at the sides/bottom to give the entire structure more strength.

Several of these items are listed on http://www.bigsis2.etsy.com/

Others are spoken for and go out the door today!!

Thanks for lookin'!

Knit an I-Cord Strap or Making a Purse Handle

KNIT AN I-CORD

I found this link to a step by step knit an I-cord. This is my most popular hit to my blog. The i-cord is the finishing touch to handmade purses, or computer bags. Once it is felted and attached it is as strong as rope, but matches the finished piece.

http://www.stitchdiva.com/custom.aspx?id=196

How to Knit an I-Cord

I can probably talk someone through this. Basically you want it to be big and bulky for your felt project. and if you plan to felt the i-cord you'll want to make it about 1/4 longer than the finished piece.

You start by casting on 3 or 4 or 5 stitches, depending on whether you want it to be thin, big, or bulky. If you used two strands of yarn throughout your felted piece then use 3 strands of yarn to make the i-cord (holding 3 strands together) this gives it thicker fullness when felted.

I'll use 5 for an example. Cast on 5, (if you use double pointed needles) move the 5 stitches to the opposite end of the needle they are on, so that your working yarn is on the last (left) cast on, then knit the five cast on stitches, bringing your working yarn that is actually on your last cast on, over to the first stitch. The first row doesn't reveal the i-cord, but after a few rows you begin to see the cord form, pull the stitches relatively tight as you go.

2nd row and each following row slide the stitches to the other end of the needle, and use the empty needle to knit again in the same fashion. It sounds a little complicated, but once you do these steps you'll see an i-cord forming.

If you don't have double pointed needles, or some broken circular needles, use two knitting needles but after the cast on slip all 5 stitches to the left needle, knit a row and slip all 5 stitches to the left needle, repeat till the cord is the length you desire,

KNIT AWAY!!

On-line Hand Felting Instructions

Before picture is first, after is next ... (double click on the pics to see the detail.) The only discerning difference is the loose knit of the piece before felting.

I was searching for on-line instructions for felting, and finally found one page that had this topic, but the instructor said she had friends that had done that, but hadn't done it herself, so she only had a few tips.

I'm in a camper, no top-loading washing machine is available, and it'll be several days before I can felt this awesome bag I just finished so ...

I figure the washing machine has hot water only as hot as the water heater, and the agitator in the washer just keeps the piece moving 5 - 12 minutes, I've felted several pieces in the washer now.

Oh my goodness, I did not know that when you put your fine knit piece in the hot water IT STRETCHES FIRST, I mean it gets huge and misshapen.

Anyway, I got the sink full of the hottest water from the water heater, then kept a pot of boiling water going behind me, to add to keep this water hot, added a little liquid detergent, and started agitating.

A couple of hints, I started using a wooden spoon to stir to keep the knit piece moving, it didn't start shrinking and felting at first, I was uneasy about this, but knew I could rinse in cold water, dry it out and felt it in a top-loader whenever I was near one, some day.

The wooden spoon had some splintery places, where the wood had split, and the first snag to the wool, I started scrounging for a different stirring tool. This ended up being a plastic pancake flipper. Worked perfect, just keeping the piece moving in the water was the goal. Each time the water cooled down enough to put my hands in the water, I squeezed the piece several times from every direction, turned it inside out and did the same, it started felting in about 20 minutes. Now the hubby comes in and some friends are here wanting to go to dinner. I rinsed in cold water, laid the bag out on a towel and walked away...reluctantly.

The next morning I got back at it, hot soapy water, teapot full of boiling water, pancake flipper and walla!! It started felting in about 10 more minutes, I did a lot of handling of the item towards the end, and it is amazing (IIMSSM*).

Now this ended up being more like 1 1/2 hour project to felt rather than the 5-12 minutes in a top-loader, but I'm glad I did this, I felt more like a pioneer woman, closer to the earth - whew be prepared for the odor, also. Wet wool, and some yarn, I think it's the dye and the fact that fibers lay around and absorb odors, but the initial odor was really strong, kinda like the dirty lamb walked into the kitchen from the rain ... imagine.

*IIMSSM If I might say so myself!

Not an expert yet, but still trying!!