This is the Felted Messenger Bag from the Crochet Me book – I started it on Friday afternoon and it’s going really fast. I finished the body of the bag last night, so I’d estimate that I’m about 70% of the way done with this project. I have to make the strap, sew it all together and then felt and embellish. (Having mentally checked out of library school really frees up a lot of time for crafting, so I am hoping to have it ready to felt when I’m home for Thanksgiving.)

The panel is about 66″ x 18″ right now; unfortunately it is also curved instead of straight – I did do the foundation chain with a larger hook, as recommended in the pattern, but I guess not large enough. I didn’t notice the curvature until I was WAY too far along, so I’m just hoping it’s not bad enough that it’ll be a big problem when this felts. The other thing that worries me is whether the charcoal will bleed onto the white when it felts. (Things I should have thought of prior to now . . . oh well.) We’ll find out!

I also don’t have enough of the main color (the charcoal) to complete the strap – I picked up more at Windsor Button on Saturday, but they were one skein short of what I needed. But, I have plenty of the contrast colors, so I think I’ll just do a stripier version of the strap rather than buy more yarn.

Yarns are as follows for the curious:

• Main color: Tweed Cascade 220 in colorway 7631 (charcoal)
• CC1: Cascade 220 Wool in colorway 8010 (white)
• CC2, 3 & 4: individual strands of Classic Elite MarL La in colorway 8572. (This yarn is four worsted/aran weights held together, and yes I took it all apart. It was PITA but I didn’t realize the yarn came like that. I wouldn’t have bought it if I did.)