Creampuff Gives a Gift Her Brother and His Dermatologist Will Never Forget

Warning: This post contains an unprecedented number of pictures of my knitting, crappy assembling skills and also, a shot of our washing machine.

For my brother's birthday, I wanted to knit him a cool tote/messenger bag for school. He's very smart and getting his PhD. I also wanted to experiment with felting, because it looked like such fun. Of course, every fool knows that for the felting, you should knit things out of wool. So I knit the bag out of Lopi Icelandic Wool. Pattern? What pattern? Sigh.

My brother, like everyone else in my family, including me, is allergic to wool. Why would I make something out of wool for my brother? Well, because I am selfish and also, in a felting frenzy. Also, I reasoned, it's a bag, not a sweater. I figured it wouldn't touch his skin that much. Uh . . . unless he's wearing t-shirts, which obviously no one who lives in California would ever do. Right?  Right. To the knitting!

This thing look the better part of a month to knit, even with my giant 8mm needles. I knit the body all in one piece, intending to fold it up like an envelope. Here's the finished body:

It's 75 inches long. That's my shapely foot in the first picture. See if you can spot the penny Katr suggested we put in for scale. Very funny, honey.

Those aren't big turds in the second picture - the big one on the right is the shoulder strap and the little one on the left is the button clasp. Shut up.

Now here's the bag pre- and post-assembly. It's about 25 inches long. Again, in the second picture, the penny for scale. I decided to take a chance and attach the straps before felting. Ill-advised? Perhaps. History will decide. It took nearly 4 episodes of Buffy Season II to sew this mofo up.

They say that little mistakes like the ones in the red, orange and white sections above disappear in the felting process. I fucking hope so. I'm going to pause for a moment to admire the colours. I really do like them, although they kind of look like a sports jersey. Hmm.

That's our washing machine with some of my old jeans in it. We put the bag into Katr's old laundry bag to keep the washer from getting fuzzy. It was a smart move. The second picture is what the bag looked like after one round of felting. Still too big. Back to the washer with you!

 

Ah! Perfect! Note the penny.

So it's drying now. I filled it with books to give it some shape and stretched out the poochy parts until Katr gently encouraged me to STOP TOUCHING IT. I haven't bought the giant toggle button I want for it yet, but soon. Soon, little bag.

I love it. But it's itchy. Like, REALLY effing itchy. Like, the delicate skin of my forearm kinda has a rash from trying it on. And it sheds like a mofo, or a cat, which my bro and I are also allergic to. It leaves little tufts of Lopi around the place like hairballs. So basically, for his birthday, I knit my brother a big hairy cat which I am encouraging him to rub against himself and carry his books around in.

It's the kind of bag only a brother could love. And now, instead of one itchy sack, he'll have two.