Project Bag for Project Bag Projects

Hi all -

As you know, I've been really enjoying making knitting project bags lately. Two of the projects that I forgot to share last week are project bag kits from Sue Spargo. I had seen these bags somewhere online before I went to Houston and had planned on picking up the kits while I was there. But there was a problem -- Sue Spargo didn't have her own booth at Houston this year so I didn't know where to get them. Late in the week I mentioned this to a friend who is a Sue Spargo fan and she suggested that I check the Wonderfil booth since they work closely together. So, I went to the Wonderful booth on Sunday and found out that Sue's family had been in the booth earlier in the week selling stuff, including both of those bag kits, but they had already gone home so I had missed them. I was bound and determined that I wanted these kits, so I logged into Sue's web site and ordered the kits online while I was still in Houston so they would arrive soon after I got home. Now I just have to make the kits!

I had started both kits before my last blog post, but forgot to include them. At that point, I had sewed together the backgrounds for each bag. Here is the background for the Swag Bag kit:

And here is the background for the Birds on Parade Sac kit:

This is, of course, the quick part of her projects! The next step is to attach the applique. I got this done on the Swag Bag:

The next step is the embroidery. I was going to start the embroidery on this bag, but then realized that I still have a Road Runner Needle Roll kit from the year before at Houston that I need to finish, too. It makes sense to finish this one first, so I went back to that project and did some more embroidery:

I just have to do the embroidery on the orange circles and then I'll be able to sew everything together and finish this project.

Now we get to the interesting title for this post. With all of the handwork in these Sue Spargo project bag kits, I really needed a project bag to hold these projects so I could keep everything together and take it easily wherever I wanted to work on it. So, I had to make a project bag for project bag projects. I decided to use my Finch Bag pattern again since this is a big bag and would have enough room for all three of these projects along with all of my threads and other supplies. I looked through my stash and found some beautiful fabric that I've been wanting to use for a while, that also had colors that matched the colors in my Sue Spargo projects. I really love how this bag turned out!!

To add to the fun, a friend of mine, who is also a knitter, had her birthday this month. I decided to make a project bag for her, too. She's a big dog lover, so I looked through my stash for some dog fabric that I thought she might like. Here is the bag I came up with:

I'm loving this bag, too, and might have to make one for myself out of this fabric! Since I'm the queen of WIPs, I know there are a lot of project bags in my future.....

Moving on to something else, my Houston classes post caused me to pull out my Tree of Life project from my Jane Sassaman class. This is a fun project that I should be able to finish fairly quickly. I was able to finish the next step on this project, which is getting all of the appliques attached:

Here's what the back side looks like with her method:

In case you can't tell from the photo, you apply the appliques in layers, cutting out the background from each applique before proceeding to the next layer. So you end up with a single layer throughout the whole quilt. Since her method has you cut out a bunch of shapes and then placing them on the background to see what you like, I had ended up with an extra flower cut out from class. So, you guessed it, I decided to also make a project bag using Jane's technique. Since I had all of the supplies out and had my machine settings for the satin stitch, I decided to get started on the bag even though I haven't finished the wallhanging. I started by sewing together a couple of pieces of fabric for the background for each side of the bag, making these a little larger than I'll use for the final bag so I can trim the pieces to size and not have to worry about any shrinking while I play with things. Since the background includes fabric that will end up on the bottom of the bag and I had that extra room for slop, I drew lines on the backgrounds to indicate where I needed to confine the appliques:

I measured these lines based on the amount of slop I added and the planned size for the boxed corners of the bag. I had to be careful to honor these boundaries on the bottom part of the bag, but could go over the lines a bit on the top since the top of the bag isn't boxed. I then chose some more flowers, leaves and butterflies to applique to the bag and arranged them in a pattern that I found pleasing:

I got all of the appliques attached and added embroidery for the butterfly's antenna. I've also fused some fusible fleece to the back of each side and now I have to decide if I'm going to do some light quilting to the sides or if I'll just assemble the bag as is. I think either way will be fine since the bag isn't large. Then I'll get back to finishing the wallhanging. I'll have some decisions to make there, too. I really like how the embroidered antenna look on the bag piece, so I have to decide whether to embroider the antenna on the butterfly on the wallhanging or quilt the antenna instead. Also, do I want to add more embroider to the wallhanging? I'll have to see how I feel when I get back to that, which should be soon.

I've also continued to work on my knitting. In my last project-based post, I'd shown a Brioche hat that I'd started to knit. I've finished that project now, but not before making a big mistake. I use a knitting app on my iPad called knitCompanion. This is incredible software where you can load your pattern PDF and then program things so that you click a button after each row and it highlights the next pattern row so you can step through the pattern with fewer mistakes. There are several sections to the hat pattern that have instructions that you step through and I programmed all of those like you are supposed to. However, there was also a "hat body" section to the pattern that has you just knit until your hat is a certain length. I'm still learning the app so I'm not sure how you're supposed to put that type of instruction in, so I decided to just remember it. But when I got to that point in the pattern, I forgot about the hat body and skipped that part. It was so stupid because even while I was doing it I kept saying to myself that this can't be right and this pattern sure is going to make a weird hat! But I ignored my inner voice and just kept on until I had finished my "Brioche Yarmulke":

Pretty funny, huh! Well, I put this aside and made a new one actually following the Brioche Shapka pattern as written and I really like those results better!

Another project from last time that I've continued to work on is my Framed scarf:

As you can see in the picture, I finished my first skein of yarn and added my second. Even though this is the same yarn, the first skein has a lot more brown in it. This is common in hand-dyed yarn. I didn't see any difference in the skeins before knitting, but there is a big difference in the knitted yarn. But I'm actually okay with this. This scarf is knitting up really soft and spongy and the colors are beautiful. I think it'll look kind of neat to have the two (and maybe three since I'll probably have to add in a bit of a third skein at the end since I added the second skein right before the middle of the scarf) ends look different.

Finally, I have another knitted project I've been working on. My current favorite online yarn supplier is Jimmy Beans Wool. They have an incredible selection of wonderful yarns and their customer service is wonderful. This is the company for the Craftvent project (the shawl) that I worked on over Christmas. They also have different clubs that send you yarn or projects or parts of projects each month. I've signed up for two of these clubs this year: one that is a year-long club that sends you monthly installments for a shawl that will be finished by the end of the year, another that sends you monthly installments for mystery projects that take three months to complete. I haven't received my January shawl installment yet, but I did receive the mystery project installment:

Our January-March 2019 project is the Moxie cowl by Marinda Lariz knit in blue, white and grey yarn. This is going to be a really cool project because it consists of all sorts of stitches with all sorts of textures. Here's the first month finished:

And here's a close-up of some of the texture:

I am really enjoying knitting this project! I love all of the different stitches -- you definitely don't get bored! And the yarn they chose is really squishy and wonderful to work with! Jimmy Beans did make a mistake and didn't send enough of the white yarn to finish the first month's instructions, but all I had to do was send them an email and they immediately sent me some more yarn so I could finish. A lot of people had the same problem, so it was their mistake and not mine. After I requested my yarn, they also announced that they will be sending out extra yarn to everyone in the next monthly installment to make sure that everybody has enough yarn to finish the project. I really like them!

Well, that's all I've been working on. I hope you are working on something fun, too!

Nancy