The Knitting Fiend

Here is the purse! I showed it to Bijou, and she thinks it’s very cute. She said she’s going to go out and buy Lion Brand Fisherman yarn to knit herself one.

I was worried when I put this in the laundry. I didn’t know if the felting process is predictable. What if the purse didn’t shrink at the same rate as the swatch? It didn’t shrink exactly the same amount, but it was close. The final dimensions are 5 1/2″ tall (see picture); I had wanted it to be 6″ tall so it’s a bit shorter than expected. The purse measures 15 1/2 inches around; I had wanted it to measure 16″ around. It the bottom is about 2″ wide; I had wanted it 2″ wide. So, this is very close, especially when you consider that I can’t decide if the two edge seam stitches are part of the body or the bottom of the purse.

There was one surprise: The strap is 30″ long!

Remember I said it was 26″ long before I washed it, and I was hoping it would shrink to 20″? (I like short straps.) Well, the strap grew 4″ in length; it ended up 30″ long. (This makes the strap a standard length for a shoulder bag. If I were smart, I’d probably just claim I intended it to be 30″, and let everyone think I’m a genius. )

Now that I think about it, this isn’t surprising. Before felting, garter stitch is fairly stretch in the lengthwise direction. If you examine the felted garter stitch, it seems to be stretched completely, and then felted. So, the strap ends up longer.

Actually, I knew I was taking a risk when I threw the purse in the wash. The strap is knit in garter stitch. All my calculations were done based on my stockinette swatch. I didn’t knit a garter stitch swatch to find out if it shrinks at the same rate as stockinette. It turns out the long garter stitch strip doesn’t shrink, it grows. Lucky for me, I like the 30″ length too!

Monday, I’ll be writing up a purse pattern generator, with complete directions.