Patience. Forgiveness. Pushing my rage inward.

Whoever said moving can be quick and stress-free is crazy.  What's that?  No one said that ever?  Huh.  Then I guess it's time to get the wax out of my ears.

So.  Okay.  I moved about a month ago.  I'm still trying to figure out what's going on, where I am, who I am, and where all my damn stuff is.

But, rest assured, I've been knitting my face off the whole time.

Right before the move, I endeavored to make a felted tote bag for my sweet friend Heather.  Heather is a lighting designer, and she gave me free range to design the bag however I wanted.  I came up with what I thought was a pretty cool design and set to work.

However.  Unbeknownst to me, some of my 100% wool - which is the most important component of a felting project - was evidently treated with something that made it unfeltable.  And I didn't know this until the tote bag was finished and I attempted to felt it.  One side felted beautifully, and the other side was just an enormous, floppy, soggy mess.

I gave myself a day to swear and kick dirt before I came up with a plan to take it apart, discard the floppy side, re-knit the side I needed, and felt it separately before attaching it to the rest of the bag.

And unfortunately, it happened again.  I thought I was going to lose my mind.  But instead, I took some deep, cleansing breaths and tried to channel my calm determination.  (I know that sounds totally ridick but I'm working on patience and forgiving myself these days.  Stop laughing.)

And the third time was the charm.  Kind of.  The side turned out great!  And I stitched it back together, and felted the whole thing together again - which shrunk it down a little bit more, but no big deal.  And then....I realized that one of the handles was twisted.  So, I had to snip the handle and fix it before sewing it and felting it once again.  Shrinking it a bit more.

AND THEN.

I realized that the handles were off center, so the whole bag couldn't lay flat.  SO.  I HAD TO CUT THE HANDLES AND FELT THE GODDAMN THING AGAIN.

By now, it's no longer a tote bag, but a cute little handbag.  And I'm doing some serious deep breathing about the whole debacle.

But it's still pretty cute.

On the upside, this is the first project that I was able to sew in my new custom knit labels!  I was so excited to get them!  Don't you love them?

However, it seems like - for now at least - this is also the last project to get one of my custom labels, because they appear to have been lost in the move.  FML.