Wednesday, October 12, 2005

She Likes It!

Here it is, my first Mindless Knitting FO of the reality-show season. The French Market Bag for my mom. See! She likes it!


Great project. I used 2 skeins of Cascade 220 in burgundy, and 1 skein denim blue. I used the excellent strap modifications found here, and I knit the bag 13" tall before felting.

Since I was knitting the bag taller than the pattern, I wanted the blue contrast portion to go higher up also. I was running out of the blue at the base of the bag, and I didn't know if I would have enough to do the handles. So, I decided to go ahead and knit the handles ahead of time, then set them aside and finish the blue completely on the base. How thrifty am I?!


Here I am running out of blue while knitting the handles, I actually had to rip back about half a round on the base to have enough for the second handle. How mad would I have been, to have knit the whole bag and run out of blue yarn a few rows from the end of the handle? It was a proud knitting moment, I felt so clever. And thank goodness I have a blog, because the moms at preschool pickup just wouldn't understand.


This is one thing I love about knitting. There is almost always a different way (or several ways) of doing something. By doing the contrast portion of the handles ahead of time, I just had to kitchener on either side of the handles (4 times) instead of at the middle of handles (2 times). No big deal. Besides, the magic of felting covers up the crappy kitchener job a person might do when they are tired, and on their fourth kitchener seam.


No felted bag post would be complete without the ubiquitous gigantic pre-felted-photo:



This bag was a fun, straight-forward project. I knit at least one felted bag every year before I remember how much I don't like making felted bags. So, so long felted bags, see ya next year! Posted by Picasa

4 Comments:

Blogger Katy said...

Hmm...I've been thinking about making one of these bags...No! NO! Not another project! lol
Meant to leave a comment the other day in admiration of your shawl (and your determination to get through the ruffles) but I was interrupted by a toddler meltdown. I'm sure you understand. ;)

5:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I LOVE the colors you chose for your bag. (Lucky Mom.) I made this bag, too, with slight modifications. There's just something so appealing about the felted bag experience, isn't there? (But I don't need another felted bag. Must find someone new to gift...)

8:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ingenious! I never would have thought to do that. I would have just knit faster just to get to the pain sooner and the worrying over with. Then my gauge would be tighter and of course I wouldn't have enough left over. Congrats on the marvelous forethought!

8:10 AM  
Blogger Genuine Lustre said...

And here I am about to start my Booga Bag . . . .

2:07 PM  

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