Project Bags and Knit-Along

Hi all -

It's time for my first progress report. What I've been working on most lately are knitting and knitting project bags. For my birthday last August, I treated myself to several knitting project bags from different Etsy sellers. I really love fun project bags and, being the queen of WIPs, I need a lot of them! I've been wanting to make some of my own since then, but I was too busy with Christmas stuff to take the time so I had to wait until after the holidays. Well, that time is here and I've got my first couple of project bags.

My first bag is a zipper bag like the ones I had purchased. I decided to base this one on my sister, Sue, to hold the yarn that I purchased for some mittens I'm going to knit for her for next Christmas. To remind me that this is a project for her, I chose some Paris fabric that I had used a couple of years ago to make a sewing notions bag for her.

I really love this fabric and how this bag turned out! I used a matching fabric for the lining.

For the zippered bag, I didn't put any pockets inside because the bag is pretty small and I don't think pockets would be useful. But I did add a lobster clip that can be used for keys or for a small notions pouch to keep them handy. I'm guessing this won't really be useful for this type of bag, but it didn't hurt to put this in to see if I like it.

For my next bag, I used the Finch Bag pattern by Stitch Mischief. I had seen this bag on one of the Grocery Girls video podcasts and wanted one for myself. My other sister, Linda, requested a snood for Christmas next year so I made this bag to hold the yarn I purchased for that project. Since she's a dog lover, I used some of my fun dog fabric for this bag.

The inside of this bag does have pockets and I added the lobster clip here, too.

The base of this bag is an ultrasuede-like fabric but the rest of the fabrics are quilting cottons.

Then, just for fun, I decided to make the Little Finch bag that also comes with the pattern. I wanted to see how I like the two sizes. For this one, I just picked some Tula Pink fabric that I really like.

I haven't added the rope to the top of this bag yet because I ordered some gray rope that I think will look better than the white rope that I used for the other bag. Without cinching, the fuchsia fabric of the casing is a little strong, but I think it'll look better once the rope is added and it is closed. The inside is just like the other Finch bag.

I used some more of the ultrasuede-like fabric for the base.

To finish out the sewing that I've done, I also made a Christmas gift bag for the gift that I already bought for my sister for next year:

I thought of a gift that I think will be perfect for her, so I wanted to get it now before I forget about it. So, scary as that sounds, I'm already getting ready for next Christmas! I hope to continue to work on Christmas throughout this next year, especially making the gift bags as soon as I have the gift. This will reduce some of the stress right before Christmas. This past Christmas, I had to make 20 gift bags at 2-3 hours each right before Christmas and that was pretty tiring! I got a couple of the bags back so I can reuse them next year, but I can't really make the bags ahead of time because the gifts have to fit inside of them.

Now on to my recent knitting. For Christmas, I bought myself the Craftvent calendar from Jimmy Beans Wool. The Craftvent calendar is an advent calendar that gives you a piece of a project every day in December up to Christmas. It comes in a really nice box with a drawer for each day:

This is a really nice box and I need to figure out how I can reuse it! The project this year was the Get Together Shawl by Joji Locatelli (sorry, I can't supply a link because the pattern isn't generally available yet). I kept up with the project on the appropriate days up until when I left to visit my family in Kansas City. I finished the rest of the project when I got back home. I still need to block it and trim the yarn ends, but here are a couple of pictures of the shawl:

I'm going to keep this shawl for myself and use it when sitting on the couch. Since menopause my body temperature tends to fluctuate a lot so this will be good for pulling on and off of my shoulders as I get hot and cold. The pattern has optional tassels on the points that I decided to forego since those might be seen as cat toys by my cats, and that wouldn't be good! I really love the feel of this shawl!

Another project I've been working on is the Framed scarf by Susan Gater. This is a free pattern available on Ravelry. I started this project while I was in Kansas City. When I travel, I just bring some interesting yarn with me, then when I'm ready to start something I look through patterns on Ravelry and start something that appeals to me at the time. I had been thinking of making the Brioche hat that you'll see I've started below, but I wasn't feeling well and I wanted a simple project so I started this scarf instead.

This has been a really nice project for when I need some mindless knitting. The only place where I have to pay attention is one place in the pattern where there is a yarn-over followed by a slip-1-with-yarn-in-front. With this combination, you basically have to wrap the yarn around the needle twice, but I've only wrapped it around once several times. It's not noticeable in the pattern, but it throws off the stitch count so I've added increases where needed to get me back to the proper count. No one will ever notice this.

Finally, I've also been participating in Laura Nelkin's knit-along. For the first quarter of every year, Laura has a knit-along where you knit any of her patterns and you are eligible for prizes. This is really nice because you can start new projects or you can finish up WIPs that you have sitting around. She also has sales on her patterns at different points through the knit-along. Since I lover her patterns, this is perfect! There are weekly prizes just for participating, even if you don't finish anything. And there are extra prizes for finished objects. And there is a big prize for a specified group of projects. This year the big prize is for making one of each of the following:

1. A project with beads (I'm doing Lolatude for this)
2. A project for charity (I'm doing Brioche Shapka for the homeless shelter for this)
3. A sweater (I'm planning to make a Baby Novus for this)
4. A project for an appendage -- foot or hand (I'm planning to make Princess Lola socks for this)

Lolatude was the Lola's Choice project for Sept 2018. At that time, I was too busy with getting ready for Christmas to work on this so I was happy to start it for the knit-along. This is a shawlet knit from a mini sock blank. Here's what we got in the kit"

A sock blank is undyed yarn that is knit (generally by machine) and then painted, stamped, dyed, whatever to get a unique placement of colors along the yarn. You then pull the yarn from one end of the blank and knit something with it. Here you can see how my knitting is coming off of the left edge of the blank:

This yarn is a little harder to knit with because it is very kinky, but I strangely enjoyed that texture as it went through my fingers. If you don't like that texture, you can unravel the blank and wind the yarn into a ball which will help reduce the kinks. Anyway, I've finished the knitting for this project, with a very small amount of yarn left over since the project is designed to use whatever amount of yarn you have.

Now I just have to fix the stitch I dropped that is being held by the stitch marker in the corner, block it and make the peyote beads that are attached to the short straight edge as a fastener for the shawlet. I'll show pictures when it's finished so you can see how it works.

The other knit-along project I've started is the Brioche Shapka.

This project is a bit of a challenge because I've only done Brioche once before and this is a more complicated Brioche pattern. I did screw up one of the more complicated Brioche stitches the first time I tried it and ended up just ripping everything out and starting over since it was so close to the beginning of the project, but it's going better now. I find the rhythm of the Brioche knitting relaxing, but it does take concentration so I can't work on this when I'm paying attention to anything else. I think this will look pretty cool when it's finished!

Well, that's all for now. We had a really pretty snow this weekend so I'll be needing to get out there and do some shoveling pretty soon. We need the snow so I hope we get a lot more of this soon!

Nancy