Nicky Epstein's Fabulous Felted Bags

If you love Nicky's other books, you will enjoy this one also. She has her own style and fashions great felted bags. A very good book to have on the shelf.

Creativity: check - wonderful ideas: check - eye catching: check - little crazy: check! While I think Epstein is BRILLIANT - this book was not particularly one of my favorites. Many of the patterns were a bit too far off the "normal" scale for daily use - but could be modified. I wasn't sure of the intended audience - some of the bags look too childish but seemed intended for adults. Several petterns were creatively spectacular, but just too over the top. Did not anyone learn from Bjork's tragic swan dress?

This book goes above and beyond the typical "knit a bag" books that are out there. It's as if an artist let you in on her secrets. Some of the bags are a little goofy in design, but the ones that are fabulous (Wisteria, Jacobian, etc.) are well worth the price of the book. Wherever I go, people say, "What a fabulous bag!" - Thanks Nicky!!! I want to own every one of her books!

This book has fun, whimsical designs for some very unusual felted bags. I knitted the Wisteria bag first and it was pretty straightforward, as most of the decoration is in the form of knitted flowers and leaves attached to the completed bag. I am not exactly a novice knitter and I found the instructions to be too skimpy, sometimes ambiguous, and sometimes wrong. You can find corrections on the internet and hopefully they are included in subsequent printings. I then knitted Tropicana which is intarsia, although the picture is partly done in duplicate stitch. Do not use the Jamieson yarn called for in the book and provided in kits, as it does not felt well at all. The owner of my local knit shop did some bags in this yarn and it pilled and sagged. I used Cascade 220 and mine felted very nicely. There were a few errors in the Tropicana instructions as well, and these are not all covered in the errata. Even so the bags are very different and are good for learning new skills without worrying about fit. Also, felting is great for hiding the occasional small mistake.