I just finished my first felting project. I took a pattern from knitty.com for a french market bag and made a few adjustments.

Firstly, I used Malabrigo yarn. This stuff is awesome to work with not only because of its incredible softness, but also, when felted, the muted variation of color in the hand-dyed yarn added depth to the project.

Because I used Malabrigo, and the pattern called for #7s and I used #8s, the gauge was off. This resulted in me having to adjust the 11/8/9 pre-felting measurements to 15/11/13. Now I thought that because of this, I would need to put it in the washer for extra long, but my co-workers said that I'd actually need to keep a close eye on the project because the gauge was so tight. They were right. It felted up extra quick and was in the wash for only about 7 minutes.

Another problem I had was that I created a diagonal stripe visual pattern around the body of the bag, but when I carried the unused yarn over on the wrong side, I didn't leave enough extra to account for the shrinkage that occurs in felting. Therefore, the middle of the body is slightly smaller in circumfrence than the rest, even though I did stretch it out as much as I could when I took it out of the wash. I didn't take finished measurements before I gave it to my mom, but here's a picture.

(http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter03/PATTfrenchmarket.html)