I completed the Faye Fringe Bag Challenge put on by Knit Collage in the two weeks suggested.

It was an expensive kit but it came with two kinds of art yarn and 5 different mini skeins of strips of fabric “yarn” plus videos, zooms, the pattern etc. It shipped out from Denton, Maryland and arrived here in Baltimore very quickly!

There was really good video instructions for each step and line of the pattern from the provisional cast on to the three needle bind off. There were also a lot of Zoom meetings and a really active Facebook group.

I did find the schedule a little odd—some days we were scheduled to just cast on but other days we were supposed to be making about half a panel in a day. I loosely followed the schedule but had a couple days where I hunkered down with an audiobook and knitted for hours and did get done in the two weeks! Their estimate was about 15-30 minutes a day.

I attended some zooms and really enjoyed seeing everyone’s progress in the Facebook group.

There was a ton of talk in the Facebook group from people following the pattern and suggested color changes and running out of the yarns in the kit, especially the fabric “yarn”. I did not have this problem. A member of the team did keep emphasizing that the order of color changes were just a “suggestion” but I would never think that a kit would not give you enough of every yarn to compete the suggested color changes they provided.

Since the pattern was the same no matter what color changes you used, unless you didn’t change the colors at all or less frequently, I don’t know how it would make a difference if you followed their suggested order or not. It would use the same amount of yarn/“yarn”. That was an odd point for them to keep making.

I actually ended up with a fair amount of both actual yarns and some scraps of the fabric “yarn” leftover. I did keep my fringe very close and maybe even slightly under the suggested five inch length which may have helped.

The pattern was easy to follow and the videos were great and very clear. I did find the fabric to be very stiff to knit with and the thick and thin yarn was at times very wispy. I had some issues around the handle of one panel because the yarn was so thin it was pulling off in my hand. It worked out but it was stressful!

The finished purse is slightly smaller than the pattern. My gauge swatch was okay (you had to unravel it to reuse the yarn to do the project so I can’t check it again) but the bag is a little less wide but the correct height.

As the challenge went on they added some videos about adding strap or liner but it’s really a small handbag and not something I’d use daily so I didn’t bother with either. The stitches are tight enough nothing will fall out. It was nice to add those instructions to the challenge. They were also helpful to people who just bought the lessons and not the whole kit with the yarn.

When I took it to my weavers guild meeting, some of the women thought I had wove it. It really does have a woven look; I think from all those slipped stitches creeping up row by row and the fabric “yarn”.

I would do another project with them and hopefully they will fill the kits a little more fully next time. I feel like I got lucky in not running out of yarn! So many people had the problem, it can’t just be user error.