Finally Finished

It feels like I've spent every spare moment of the last two weeks working on my Ravelympics project: Mrs. Weasley's Bag of Stitch Witchery by Alison Stewart-Guinee, from the Charmed Knits book. I changed a few little things in the pattern. First, I used size 7 needles instead of size 5. This was because I hoped to felt the project. I got the front and back panels finished easily. The side panels took much longer because the pattern kept increasing and decreasing. The effect was fantastic, but the process of knitting it was tedious. When it came time to join the panels, I decided not to do the three needle bind off, picot edging. Instead, I simply crocheted the panels together using the purple yarn instead of adding a forth color. The facing was easy enough. The bottom threw me for a bit of a loop. I started out with the decreases in the wrong place. Fortunately I noticed after two rounds, but I still had to rip out more than 400 stitches. And I misunderstood the bind off, had to rip that out and redo it. I improvised some handles, knit with size 5 needles in a seed stitch.



Then came the moment of truth. I decided that yes, I was going to felt it. Having never felted before, I wasn't sure how it would turn out or if I would like it. I'm sure I checked everything much more than I needed to, but I ended up being happy with the results. After folding each piece for the handle over, sewing them, turning them inside out, and sewing them onto the bag, I was finally finished!