The Never Ending Saga of the Lucy Bag

Did I ever tell you about the Lucy Bag?
I first saw this pattern in the LionBrand catalog. I loved it, but couldn't bear the thought of paying all that shipping...so I started my search. First, I looked for free patterns that might be similar. This lasted months. Nothing. Looked on E-Bay.....no deals there...people had the pattern, but it cost just as much, by the time the bidding was done. Searched all the chain shops, since that was all I could find....nothing even close. This behavior carried on for over a year.
In the meantime, I was also plotting a shawl, and saw the beautiful shawls hanging on the porch of Olga's so I stopped in to take a peek at them. The shop is amazing, even before you get to the yarn room! Olga is even MORE amazing, and after a bit of conversation and a glass of wine (my two favorite hobbies combined!) she showed me the work area, where she also keeps the books and magazines.....and what to my wondering eyes should appear.....The Lucy Bag pattern! I snatched it right up, and off I went,,,happy as a clam. Of course, I forgot it on the counter, and Eric had to go back the next day to get it.
Thus, the first bag was begun. I made the small version, which turned out VERY small, but large enough to carry a sock in progress, along with it's paraphernalia.
Rod, a co-worker spotted it, and asked if I could make one for his wife in a pinkish kinda color...which was impossible to find in wool, so I had a minor outbranching into Kool-Aid dying, and the bag was made. Then Sonja wanted one for Christmas. She wanted it done in natural color wool, with stripes of blue and brown. The blue was easy, but the brown was a challenge....until I found the PERFECT color. In alpaca. Well...I decided to take a chance, at felting the mixed fibers, and it worked. Her bag came out beautiful.
Another co-worker, Lori, had seen the bag I made for Rod's wife, and asked if I could make one for her. She wanted hers brown, so off I went to Olgas for some Cascade 220, which I have decided I like the best for felting.

As I was knitting that bag, another person wanted to buy one, so once it was done, I started another....but this time, I decided to try some colorstranding on the bag...so I found a simple pattern online, and worked the bag...using leftovers from Sonja's bag and Lori's bag. The girl who had wanted it changed her mind, but Mom decided that she wanted it, and she bought me a skein of Jitterbug in Lapis as a trade for it. The bag seemed to take me forever to knit,

but finally, into the washer it went for the felting. That's when the trouble started. The stranded parts felted much more quickly than the solid color parts....my bag had a perfect hourglass figure! Two more rounds of washer felting did not help. I tried hand felting it, I tried boiling it. The poor thing has been washed, stretched and re-washed so many times, I was afraid of wearing it out. It ended up looking like a tube with a wavy strap attached. I put it in the bad corner for a week long sit, and think about its sins, which brings us to today. It is in the washer, as we speak(along with an old crocheted acrylic blanket to teach it some humility), having it's last wash because we are about to do the unthinkable. It is going into the dryer. Pray.

...and here is how it turned out. Still WAY too long, I gave Mom the option of opting out and I would knit her another, but she insisted that she loved it.