Mary Poppins Bag

This little beauty is where I've been the past few weeks.

I have been frantically working to finish this bag in time to take it with me on a girls weekend away. And, yes, I know I just came back from a girls weekend away but this was with a group of different girls.

I'm in a lot of girl groups. And we like to travel. We're like packs that way.

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Anyway, this second group of girls is my knitting group. One of my fellow knitters, B, and I started this Mary Poppins carpet bag over two years ago. The bag is made from a bunch of knitted pieces that are embroidered, felted, and then sewn together.

The knitted parts were done very fast. The embroidery? Not so fast.

Actually, two years slow.

Both B and I got stymied by the embroidery that had to be done. The pattern was not helpful in telling us what colors to use for the stems, veins on the leaves, flower outlines, or any other details that had to be put in place before we could felt. So, without any guilt, we put the bag pieces in {plastic} bags and shoved them far back into upstairs closets. At least, I did. I have no idea what B did with her pieces. I know what she didn't do and that was finish the bag.

Until about a month ago.

I was cleaning out that closet and found the pieces. I do not like unfinished projects and this was one. It came out and I decided to hunker down and attack that embroidery. I texted B and let her know what I was doing. She rose to the challenge and picked her bag up again. We embroidered our little fingers off, intent on getting it finished in time for our trip. It took the whole weekend but it got finished. We dropped the pieces off to our knitting teacher since she had agreed to felt them for us.

Ah. What relief.

Until I got a phone call from B the following Sunday while I was in church. I called her as soon as I could and found that we had a knitting emergency. Both of us had made the same mistake. We had only knit one strap/handle and needed two.

Aack!

I dropped my Bible off at home, yelled something to the Man and K and J as I went flying out the door, and took off for the knitting shop. I had to get more yarn and needles and get busy knitting.

Fast forward a couple weeks. All pieces are completed and felted. B and I met the Sunday afternoon before our trip to sew the bags together. 

It was almost anti-climatic. They went together so easily. The hardware went in without any struggle. It took a little time to sew in the handles. I will post a photo of the completed bag, with the bright red handles and shiny silver buckles.

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B and I made the grand reveal on our weekend away. There were a few gasps, someone thought we bought the bags while we were out that day, and lots of ooh-ing and aah-ing. 

So glad we made these bags. So glad they are finished.