felting update

I felted my turquoise swatch and it shrank from 5 1/4 wide by 7 tall to 4 1/2 by 3 5/8.

Last night I had some formula cooked up which isn't important right now, because this morning's formula is so much better: The size of the swatch before washing is unimportant. What matters is the stitch and row per inch of the washed swatch, voila:

25 stitches yields 4 5/8 inches, which is 5.347 spi
34 rows yields 3 5/8 inches, which is 9.25 rpi

tadaa

Therefore,
width desired x spi = stitches to cast on

The 80 stitches I cast on last night will give me a finished product 15" wide, and

height desired x rpi = rows to knit

to get a bag 11" tall I need 102 rows.

60 rows across the bottom will give me a depth of 6 1/2"
but then I'll have to pick up stitches along the side of those 60 rows... hmmm...

again, 6.5 x spi = I need to pick up 35 stitches.

But that part's a ways off yet.

I'm using a striping pattern that looks random but isn't; more about that later.

Last night I calculated how many stitches I'd end up having in the thing and came up with forty thousand but I don't believe that, so I'm not going to do that kind of math again, lest I get discouraged...