What do you mean "it's felted?"

I get a lot of questions about how I make these bags and hats. I can understand why - before I started doing it myself, there was no way I could picture it. It's just a strange concept.

Almost everything that I've posted has been felted (with the exception of Grandpa's Girl and Wild Violet,) which is a process by which wool yarn shrinks down in size and the fibers puff up to form, well, felt!

What usually gets folks attention is that I have to knit every single thing by hand first. That means thousands and thousands of little stitches go into making a single bag and the product starts out usually 33% - 50% larger than the finished size. Yep, that's a lot of knitting.

I recently finished 2 bags that were custom ordered. Fortunately, I happened to be on the ball and took pictures before and after felting in order to show the difference in texture and size. Naturally, since I almost always have a 3 year old and a 5 year old helper with the camera, the photos are not star quality, but hopefully you can still get the idea. You'll see photos with the two bags prior to felting. Notice how the individual stitches are clearly visible (okay, not on Fairy Tale - gimme a break, eh?) The pre-felted bags are quite large (there is a regular CD next to them for scale,) and shapeless. In fact, they are even pinned to the backdrop to keep them from falling into a heap. The finished product, you'll agree, is dramatically different.