One Skein? Ha!

How-to Questions
1

Yesterday, I finished the dreaded purse that was giving me so much trouble. It turned out fantastic! The problem is, since the pattern is from the book “One Skein” I stupidly only bought one skein.

Now, the purse is complete, but I only have about 8 inches of yarn left to sew up the bottom of the purse before I felt it. Is there anything else that I can use that won’t get messed up in the felting process (ie it won’t felt and my purse will be misshapen) or do I really need to go hunt down a skein of this yarn?

Thanks!

2

One thing about felting is it hides a multitude of sins. If you can find a wool yarn (not superwash) that is similar in color it likely won’t show a lot especially if you use the mattress stitch or work from the inside. Once felted you should be able to see much if anything and if you can see a bit it will be on the bottom.

3

Thanks!

I was hoping someone would say something like that. The yarn is kind of lime green, so I hope I can find something close to it.

You would reccommend ONLY using yarn, right? My friend said to just use some thread, but I thought that sounded like bad news.

4

Well, I wouldn’t use thread. I can’t really give you a definitive answer on why it’s not a good idea, but it doesn’t seem like it to me either. :shrug:

5

I think using wool to sew it up will be best, too, since it will shrink along with the stitches. Thread will stay the same length as it was when you sewed the seam while the stitches would shrink. I, too, don’t know if this would create a problem in holding the seam together, but why take the chance?

6

Hmmm… I think it was EZ who suggested using only half of the plies of a yarn to avoid bulk when seaming… you may not need to avoid bulk here, but you could try to stretch the amount of yarn you have left for seaming by pulling apart the plies instead of using it at full gauge, KWIM? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about finding another yarn to match. 8 inches is not a whole lot to work with, though. Do you have a swatch you can unravel?

7

There’s wolly thread used for sewing knits,lycra and the colours are limited. However if you buy some yarn you could at least use it on another project.
Dee.

8

No, I don’t have a swatch to unravel, unfortunately, but it is a pretty bulky yarn, so I may try pulling out the plies. That’s pretty genious actually.

Otherwise, I did find a yarn that is about half of the price of the skein I used that seems to be a similar color, so if the first idea doesn’t work out, I will go ahead and buy it.

Thanks, everyone, for all of your help!