Felted Fair Isle Haversack

In the interest of getting the heck out of Dodge, I planned a trip to northern Europe in December.  Within that trip, I plan to take at least a week (if not 10 days) to tour around Denmark, Sweden, & Finland.  I have no wish to wheel a piece of carry-on luggage around with me through cold & snow to see all of this.

A pack, however, would be fabulous.  And so, the planning began.  A knapsack of sorts, based on the general dimensions of the Red Bag Hand-Me-Down from my mother.  But felted, not leather.  With a Scandinavian-ish fair-isle pattern to tie everything together.

This season's Twist Collective inspired the pattern for my bag.  A hat was elaborated into bag size, with color changes as well as my initial worked in.  Almost ten pages of futzing around on quadrille paper later, everything was ready.  The yarn came from the fruits of my work for my local yarn shop.

Once all 8 skeins of Cascade 220 were caked, knitting began.  First, a swatch to determine dimensions.  Then, a cloud of scribbles in my Book O' Knitting Stuff became the work-up for the bag. 

Much knitting in the run-up to Thanksgiving.  Much knitting on the 10 hour ride to Tennessee.  As a result ==> completion & felting the weekend after Thanksgiving somewhere amongst the deer, rabbit, & varmint hunting.

Tabs to wrap over bars for structure, now determined to be old wooden knitting needles that Mom passed down to me at the beginning of my official knitting career (i.e. at 25, not at 10).

Steeks were worked into the bottom sides to allow for more room.  A strap is planned for carrying, hopefully such that it will keep the bag shut when worn.  At present, the bottom panel is being worked.  Two shades of red worked in a 2x2 checkerboard.  More pics to come as they are available.