Here is our Nicky Epstein Flower bag from the Dec 2004 Vogue Knitting magazine.

We were discouraged after making the swatch. The knitting store said that the yarn "Baby" is very very thick! So she said to use two strands of "regular" wool (she doesn't carry "Baby" anymore). We used two strands of black Cascade 220 and one strand of Baabaajoe's woolpack (the thick one). We felted it and it was gross. So, we tried again with 2 strands of black Cascade 220 and two strands of the woolpack. We SHOULD have swatched again, but got very lucky.

Hints:
1. Use colors YOU like. We didn't use the exact shades that Nicky used but these shades were ones that WE LOVED.

1A. YOU MUST SWATCH! Yes, you got that right...YOU MUST SWATCH! Once you've put that much effort into the bag, you don't want disappointment! You can't rip it out once it's felted so please take the time/yarn to swatch! It's pretty if the green lattice felts as a ""raised line"" on top of the black. It's ugly if the lattice felts flat onto the black as a green line.

1B. If you haven't knitted in ""pattern"" before, practice before you try this one. I didn't understand her increase instructions and started having black spots with no green lattice because we didn't add more patterns on the side. She is very vague about how to continue the pattern when you don't have enough stitches to do so. Clearly, this wasn't a beginner pattern... we were able to hide and fudge along the way (also see item 2 below)

2. We ""adjusted"" the seams so that it would appear that the lattice continued around the sides. Still, ours weren't perfect, but we fudged the best we could and wove extra yarn in any ""holes"" so that holes would felt ""closed"".

3. We had to run the bag through 3 cycles of ""SuperWash"" (24 mins of washing, in my Whirlpool). Even then, the bottom didn't felt well. You have to stop every 5-10 felting minutes and readjust the bag so that it will felt evenly. We didn't do this adjusting but should have!

4. We felted the roses/leaves separately from the bag then hand sewed the leaves to the roses and then sewed that flower unit to the bag. My roses came undone in the washer too. We fudged and nudged the roses until they looked pretty. You can't tell from the photo but we mixed reds/pinks to make the roses and different greens for the leaves. We did this primarily because we didn't have enough of any one color to make the roses/leaves but we also thought they would felt into a nicer, uneven, more ""natural"" color. The green didn't blend as well as we had thought but the roses are beautiful

5. We didn't make the roses/leaves for the back. Who sees the back? The roses would also interfere with the ability to hold the bag close to your body. However, the truth is...we were just too tired and lazy to make those extra pieces. We didn't invest in the Addi Turbos (they would have exceeded the cost of the yarn...) and the two long sticks we were using were just too uncomfortable to maneuver (can you tell that we usually knit with circulars?)
6. We knitted the silly pocket but didn't use it. We lined our bag using the ""cut and pray"" method.