Swatch, felted!

I perhaps over-documented the felting process for my Malabrigo worsted swatch (from the previous post) for the KT collaboration tote. :D. Ah well, at least I'm blogging. One of these days I'll actually blog Japan.

And... here's the swatch after only 5 minutes of felting. Not quite there yet...

After 5 more minutes, the stitches had really melted into each other and the cabled area was taller than the plain StSt section. Here it is, after rolling water out but before "blocking" (i.e. pulling at the StSt section to make it more even with the cable)

After "blocking", still retaining at least 10 g of water (it's fun to weigh your swatch!)

These were all last night. This morning, I took the now-dry swatch out into the cloudy morning for some "glamour pictures"















And now, for the measurements, post-felting:
(reminder, this was 30 stitches wide by 33 rows tall on size 10 needles...)
~6.5" wide by ~4.75" tall (it's not quite a rectangle...)
The St St section (18 stitches) is about 4.25" wide.

The cable section is about 1.75" wide. The purls to the left of the cable are wider than those to the right! I'm a new cabler, and the ones on my tank top turned out somewhat asymmetrical as well.

Lookswise, I'm not sure I'm loving the cable. It's very subtle post felting, though more obvious now that the swatch is dry (when it was wet, it just looked fuzzy). Also, the stripes moving across it kinda hide it. But on the other hand, it adds a bit more visual interest, as I'd hoped, and you can still see the crossings if you look. I don't know. Maybe a couple of cables on the flap would be good (perhaps a cable both thinner and "higher" if that's possible?), but it's probably not worth the wool to cable the whole thing.

It's a nice firm fabric that still retains the softness of the yarn. It's not stiff, though - very flexible. And the color is still somewhat camo-y, but I'm OK with that. It actually reminds me more of produce - I'm having to fight off the sudden urge to knit up a felted watermelon!w

Final notes: I'm liking this little swatch more and more as I blog it. Folded "the short way" it would make a great little coin purse for inside the bag. Folded the long way, it might make a good pencil case. Oh, and when I was in Japan I picked up a couple of .75" wood buttons that I'd like to use on the bag if possible. Pictures later :)