I’ve finally started making a Booga Bag since I’ve seen so many wonderful pictures and comments about it. My question/problem is with the handle. I’m only about 1/2 of the way done with the bag but looking ahead I can’t seem to understand the instructions for feeding through the handles. I’m thinking that once I have the handles and bag in my hand that I might understand but does anyone had an easy way to explain to me? Thanks in advance for any help.
Booga Bag Handles
According to the instructions, once you finish knitting and felting the bag and handles seperately, you simply jam a large knitting needle through the fabric at the desired place and shove the handles through. This is significantly easier said than done.
For my second bag, I figured out where the “handle holes” should go before I finished knitting and put in holes about an inch or so from the top of the bag. I did this by inserting a YO followed by a K2tog (to maintian the same stitch count) at each hole position. To keep the holes open during felting, I looped a strand of non-felting acrylic yarn loosely through each hole several time and tied the ends securely (each hole used a seperate piece). After felting I was able to find my holes easily, and while they did need a bit of stretching, they were much easier to work with than the method in the instructions. Hope that helps - good luck!
Once it’s felted it’s easy enough to cut a hole w/scissors where you want the handle to go thru.
You can use Jhelanee’s method of knitting the holes in, but they may felt over if you keep them small and have to cut anyway. Also, in the felting process they could get out of alignment and you may prefer to cut them anyway.
Oh, I’m glad you asked!
I keep looking at the pattern, but the instructions you’re talking about - how to feed the felted i-cord through the holes, just makes no sense to me either!
I see clearly where the holes go. I just don’t understand where the cord goes in/out of the bag and why it says to go through both sides twice - once with each end of i-cord? Seems to me like going through both sides ONCE would do it…:whoosh:
Two thoughts. The lady that was leading our knitting group suggested we use needle-nosed pliers to poke the holes through, and then clasp the end of the handle, and pull it back through…worked like a charm!
As to how you do it, we had about 6 of us working on it at the same time, and came up with about 6 different ways to do the handles!
I folded the bag the way it said, but ended up putting one end of the handle through one side (one “fold”) and the other through the other side (“fold”) and tying it in the middle (of the side of the bag). Then I did the other side of the bag the same way. (I hope that makes sense…it was clear when I did it! ;))*
Others just skipped the folding thing, and put the handles where they wanted them and knotted them on the inside of the bag.
*Okay, I looked at the pictureagain, and where it show how to poke the needles through, it’s folded so you go through 4 layers. I put the handle (if looking at the picture) through the top two layers from the, and through the bottom two layers from the bottom, and knotted it between. (Man! It’s so much easier to show in person than to describe in words!!!)
Thank you all for your responses.
I think I understand how Lisa explained it but the picture on the instructions appears to only have two knots and I think I would end up having four knots.
Does anyone have a picture looking inside the bag that shows how the handles are “threaded” through? A picture says a thousand words, LOL.
This is probably not going to help; but it’s the best I have.
Pretend you have a brown paper bag; notice how the sides fold inward as you flatten it? Hold your bag the same way, and using the needle you knitted with push/wriggle a hole from the front side of the bag all the way thru to the back. (I’d say at least an inch and a half down from top of bag—but it’s your choice). Once you feed your handles thru, the ends will meet on the side of the bag, then tie in knot.
Phaedra.
Cool bag! Where can I find the patterrn?
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Guess what----I sorta made it up! There’s a Harry Potter KAL on this site. I had just finished reading HP and the Deathly Hollows; this is my interpretation of Hermione’s magic bag. I call it my Hermione-Beaded-Booga-Bag.
Anyway, I took the original Booga Bag pattern (used 4 skeins of KnitPicks WOTA), added more stitches for the length of the bottom and used a textured stitch (berry stitch) from Nicky Epstein’s [U]Knitting Never Felt Better[/U] 'cause I thought it looked “beaded” when felted. Also made an inside cell phone pocket for one of the sides.
I was my first time felting; I started on a Friday and finished that Sunday! Used my DH’s height (six feet) to measure the length of the pre-felted handle—just right!
I even emailed a picture to the Booga Bag designer, thanking her for such a great pattern; and she answered back! So much fun!
By the way, that all 7 books in the bag.:teehee: