I’m still laughing from the cute little post at Moth Heaven and am wondering if I’ll ever become a stash-a-holic with yarn poop coming out of the back of my car!  Mostly my stash is filled with misguided efforts from not knowing any better and hoping that my mistakes will be used up as mittens and scarves over the years.  Went to bed last night with some unwelcome news from a dear friend who is now in the hospital so the smile it brought was especially needed   On to happier thoughts, I finished another UFO, and I’m happy to say, I think its the nicest ‘felted’ project I’ve ever made.  It took me 5 mistakes to realize, wash lightly, briefly, ever so gently (all the books I read said throw in a towel, wash it vigorously with jeans etc.etc. which I cannot recommend….definitely less is more:-); “lightly felted” gave me the nicest results….with some stitch definition left and just a nice soft appearance on the surface.  I also loved how this rough coarse Noro Kureyon turned into something soft and cuddly after felting.  I decided to show the bag handles first because the colors were just so pretty.  I used the pattern from the book Handknit Holidays and was inspired to pick this color from Sally Melville’s book where she used the same for her “kiss tote bag” but she used brown instead of the white I used here for the contrasting color.  I wasn’t sure when I first started knitting if the contrast would be enough but sure enough it was with the darker colors, a little less so for the lighter greens but I liked that effect, with one repeat showing up on top very clearly and the next one below that not so pronounced.  I also love color of the Noro Kureyon; very similiar to Koigu in the sense that it graduates from one color to the next, no abrupt changes in color, so it mirrors color from nature exactly and gives everything a water color finish, so perfect for Fair Isle!  Making the bottom of the bag was a lot of fun too; I wasn’t sure if the bottom would stay flat…I did end up with a very flat bottom but there is nothing to keep it flat if I put things inside so you either need to put something inside like a small round piece of cardboard to use as a handbag, or as a present/gift bag, you would definitely need to put an object inside with a flat bottom that fills up the space as if the bag was doing double time as wrapping paper (like the photo in the book).  Now that I’ve posted the photo, my eyes are sort of doing a double take, because every time I look at this, it keeps reminding me of a starfish in the sand.   I also thought I would post some photos of what the finished bag looked like before felting so anyone that hasn’t done this before can see.  I always wished those pattern books would include a before and after and it helped me tremendously seeing them online from other knitters.  Because the Kureyon is like homespun yarn it goes from thick to thin so the felting helped even things up and give it a much smoother appearance.  After felting the top stopped curling, the sides smoothed out, and the colors blended together more.  There was a lot of fuzz that had to be shaved off after felting but I didn’t capture a photo of that stage.  I just used the cheapest men’s hair shaver I could find at Target, I think it was something like $17.00 – a good investment if you plan to felt alot.  This past month my mailbox was flooded with JoAnn’s 40% off coupons and never found the time to make it over there and finally yesterday I went thinking all the good stuff would be gone but was so excited to see Nicky Epstein’s Knitting Never Felt Better still on the shelf so I splurged with my coupon and now I’m really happy because I’m thinking felting is a nice thing to do afterall, once I found some success with it.  There are directions inside for some pretty braided handles that makes me want to create a whole bag for just so I can carry it around with those handles, they are too cute.  I had my eye out on that book ever since I saw it but I was so discouraged with my previous felting attempts, I thought I had given up on it for good.  One of the knitting stores I visited in San Francisco had a scarf on display based on one of the techniques in the book where she uses marbles to give flat knitting some texture and it was very, very pretty, much more so seeing it in real life as opposed to the pictures in the book.  One more day until Christmas and I have one UFO left, a Fair Isle Christmas stocking….will I finish?  Just the toe left (on size 0 needles)….I’ll have to pull out all the Christmas movies and speed knit through all of them….I wonder how many other knitters are out there with flying fingers rushing to the finish line?