Pretty things make me smile

I am still slugging through Internal Medicine. It was really great for two whole weeks, while I had a fabulous attending physician who really treated me well. I know that I don't want to be an internist, and was hoping just to survive internal in one piece, but for a few weeks there, I was actually enjoying it!

I now have an attending who for some reason has taken a dislike to me, so although I still enjoy the work, I spend a lot of my day feeling really anxious and stressed. I'm trying to keep those feelings to a minimum, an effort which is helped by having great residents on the team who encourage me, and having received a superb evaluation from the previous attending (the one who I liked) -- and besides, only two more weeks and then on to psychiatry! Hooray!

Anyhow. Let's focus on things that make me smile almost all the time (dropped stitches aside).

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I made a Booga Bag!

I spotted the pattern sometime last fall and decided right away that I wanted to make one. I'm always on a quest for the perfect purse - something not too dressy (leather looks funny with my ski jacket and/or running shoes) and not too plain (because that looks strange with dressy clothes). The Booga Bag seemed like the perfect compromise.

Pre-felting:

Post-felting:

The colours are truer in the pre-felting pics, but if I wait until I'm home during daylight hours to take a picture of the assembled version, it'll be May before this post is finished!

The Specs

Pattern: Booga Bag, by Julie Anderson. Available online here.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon, #159 (It took almost the whole 3 skeins.)

Comments: This was my first effort at felting. It's fun! Every felting how-to website that I could find said to put the items in a zippered pillowcase, which definitely doesn't exist at my house, so I compromised. I put them in a regular pillowcase (an old one) and tied a big ol' overhand knot. It took three trips through the washer to felt as I wanted it to.

The pattern is great, simple, and easy to follow for first-time felters.

My only complaint is that the i-cord straps stretch quite easily and are already growing. When I make my next one (I'm thinking spring colours), I'll probably put the strap through the washer an extra time to make it a little sturdier.

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I've been knitting (and, sadly, frogging) other things lately, too. More to come, hopefully later this week!