Felted Winter Tote

A few years ago I bought 10 skeins of orange Jaegar Como online for a pretty sweet deal. I planned on using it for a sweater in the Jaegar book. But once the yarn arrived, I wasn’t sure I liked it for a sweater. It felt kind of acrylic, even though it’s 90% merino.

(Note to self: buying yarn cheap online is only good if I'm familiar with the yarn...)

I'm lukewarm on the sweater now, too. Not sure if that cable on the neckline would look nice or ridiculous.

Since the yarn has a high wool content, I felted a small swatch of it to see if it would (despite its 10% nylon) and it did. I decided to save it for something felted. My friend copied a pattern for me (I know, not Kosher...but we all do it) from the Holiday Knits book, and I planned to use the yarn for that project. I even (because I'm sick) ordered more of the yarn in pink, so I could make the bag with an accent color. This was after I knew I didn't even like the yarn much...

Fast forward three or four years, enter my obsession with either getting rid of yarn I know I'm never going to use, or starting the projects that have been waiting for me for so long. I cast on for the Felted Winter Tote.

I believe that the authors of this book from where the pattern comes own the store Noe Knits in San Francisco. I was there a few years ago, and remember they had the book on display in the store with an errata note that the yarn should be doubled for this pattern.

I'm only a few rows into it at this point but will make a swatch of doubled yarn and re-felt -- just to make sure it doesn't turn out too thick. Because knitting the whole thing and discovering that after the fact would truly be a drag.

I'll order the suede handles and bottom online and see where this project goes...wish me luck. At the very least, I'll clean out some of my stash.