I enjoyed this kit very much! The final bag comes out as described. It is unique, fun and quick (excluding the felting process).
The yarn is easy to work with -- I love working with natural fibers. I will say that the vanilla bean is much more beige in color than it appears in the photo of the finished project, even after felting. I had no issues with the materials except that I needed a third skein which I had to buy locally. The difference in the dye lots became less of an issue after felting. I’m not sure this would be the case with a darker colored yarn. I used less than half of the third skein. I had to go down to a 5.00mm hook to meet the gauge requirement in the instructions. Perhaps this affected my yarn needs however, my bag dimensions matched those described by the designer, except for the height of the bag where I required one more round.
The instructions for the base of the bag (which is a small section of the overall project) could be more clear. For example, instructions for one round reads in part: “2 dc in next dc, dc 3”. A more clear instruction is: “2 dc in the next st, 1 dc in each of the next 3 sts”. I rewrote the instructions for myself to use this format for this and the rest of the rounds for the base of the bag.
I feel that the designer did an excellent job of documenting the rest of the crochet instructions, the overall process, desired measurements, and the felting process. The instructions include a detailed drawing depicting measurements before and after felting. I referred to this often. The designer also provided a couple of photos in the instructions as well.
A couple of minor changes that worked well for me:
- I used an “invisible join in the round” technique to end the rounds rather than joining with slip stitch in the top of the first stitch of the round. I believe this did a better job of hiding the join.
- Regarding the straps: Before starting the first strap, I cut the yarn because I wanted each side of each strap to look the same where it joined to the bag. I did this for both the short and long straps. I used the Foundation Double Crochet (Fdc) to begin the straps and joined them afterward using. As far as placement of the straps, I centered the small strap over the column where the rounds joined in making the bag because I considered this the center of the back of the bag.
- I lined the finished bag.
