I felted the bag last nite

All four sides of the bag after felting

and now its drying...isnt it amazing  how much it has changed during the felting process....no longer can you see the stitches...the wool which felt coarse before is now sooo soft...its lovely to feel as well as look at.

And one of the things i love about Noro yarn is its varigation...you get alot of color out of one skein of yarn...and these two with purple combined to make a gorgeous winter bag...or is it a SACK:> its big enough...This enterlac bag is from Bags: A Knitters Dozen published by RXR Books at www.knittinguniverse.com Enterlac means that each square is knitted individually...

Felting  process - Felted it in hot water with a little detergent and some old towels....two cycles on heavy to get it to felt...rinsed it in cold water in the kitchen sink...rolled it in some more towels to dry it...then i put it on the island...BYTW I read in an article on Knitty.com(great free directions for all kinds of knitted things) that when you felt you need to clean out the washer before the knit cycle...but there so far i have not been able to find enough to take out of the washing machine...perhaps some yarns produce more lint than the ones i have been using to felt?

OK what is all the stuff coming out the top...you have to put something round inside of it to shape it while it dries....so i used an old tupperware flour container and an old electrosol bucket that i use to hold old paintbrushes....then is stuffed around the with grocery bags ....plastic ones to smooth out the shape...i need more of them BUT i had been a good green person and taken them back to the grocery store for recycling...darn...guess i will have to keep a stock of them now...for stuffing felted objects...this bag is quite large so it really takes alot of them.  Thinking i might make another out of just one color way of Noro...one of the bright ones for summer time so will have to stock up on those pesky plastic bags...

The cooling rack??? Why is it there you are wondering...last nite after it had been sitting a while on the counter i put my hand under it and there was a small puddle where all the water was draining to the bottom ...so i put it on the cooling rack to let the air get to the bottom too...its still quite damp on the bottom but not soppy wet like it was...

Last step to sew on the handles after it is completely dry and load that sucker up!!