Friday, May 23, 2008

Enough I-Cord to Hang Myself

The beastly bag has about exceeded my attention span.
I have abandoned the idea of the flap, despite all that work toward it. I got about 20 or 30 rows in and realized it just wasn't working for me. It wasn't coming out as I had envisioned it. (no pictures. Haven't taken pictures lately.)
So I had a consultation with Mom and she confirmed that not only would she be able to install a zipper when she made the lining, but it would be no problem at all. The whole goal of the flap was to have a secure closure, so a zipper will be fine. She said she was happy I was abandoning the flap as she had thought it would be too bulky, but she didn't say anything.
She then proceeded to talk me out of my idea of working the handle off the live stitches on one side and grafted to the live stitches on the other. I was starting to waver on that idea as well. When I made her a felted bag last year I used a Fiber Trends pattern, but she wanted the handles to be long enough to reach the bottom of the bag for extra support. She campaigned for that method. I didn't want the handles on the outside, obviously, since it would mess up the design (she sewed hers to the outside as a design element), but she was pretty sure she would be able to secure them inside and the cover it with the lining.
Which leaves me making miles of I-Cord. The handles in the Fiber Trends pattern were worked flat in a funky manner, but I can't find the pattern (I suspect mom has it as I sent it to her for the felting instructions. But then she ended up felting at my house when she was puppy sitting once).
So far I've worked about 50 inches of I-Cord, which is probably going to be about half of one side. I did 24 inches for down the side and 30 inches to span the top and then I'll have to do another 24 inches for the other side. Of course I have to make two. ugh. Since running out of green is still a risk, I've done the parts that will be inside in black and the handle bit you'll see in green. Actually, I'm not sure I'll have enough black even(!) so I might have to do the second handle in white and green. Of course I keep reading stuff that says lighter colors, especially white, often don't felt as well as other colors. (I think it has something to do with the bleaching process stripping off the little scales which are the whole reason things felt. But I'm not sure that I ever heard that or I'm just jumping to that conclusion on my own.) This leads to worries that the handles won't be even, so I'm actually toying with the idea of working each handle in both black and white so they are messes up the same. :-)
For now, I'm tired of working I-Cord and I put it aside to work on the heel flap of my Rainbow Swirl Sock. Despite all the fun stuff I learned last weekend, I'm doing my normal stockinette stitch flap with slipped edges. After all, I want the socks to match.

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