Bags

The Net Duffel Bag has been done and photos taken for over a week now, but only today do I find the time to write about it.

Pattern: Net Duffel Bag by Vivian Høxbro, as published in Interweave Knits, Spring 2009
Yarn: 2.5 skeins Louet Euroflax fine / sport weight linen, 100% wet spun linen, color: Blue Heron
Needles: size 2
Started 4/9 and finished 5/3/2009

The major modification I made was to inadvertently overlook the needle change when beginning the handle. I’m glad I did. This made the handle far shorter than in the pattern yet I can easily sling it across my body. I can’t imagine how long the handle would be had I worked it on size 6 needles as recommended. Looking at the photo in the magazine on page 29, it looks like a shorter handle than mine, but look closely, and you see there is a knot back behind the model’s shoulder. So if you are making this and don’t want the bag to hang past your knees (and before washing it came to my knees and I’m 5′7″), continuing on with your smaller needles for the “band and handle” section is A-OK.

Now, unless you want to weave in a minimum of 144 ends (72 squares x 2 ends each) just for the body, I have a tip. Knit the base with the first skein of yarn, cutting the tail when the instructions tell you to except for square 16, which you can leave attached. I used a safety pin to hold the last stitch in place. Before continuing into tier 1, take your second skein of yarn and split it into sevenths, so you have 7 little balls of yarn. The remainder of ball #1 (still attached to square 16) is your 8th ball.

The next squares you work set up a pattern of eighths: the bag is constructed in eighths up through its 5 tiers and using 8 little balls will help minimize tails. When you’re done with the base you work squares 17 through 20. Start with a new little ball of yarn for each square that needs it (I used a rubber band on each ball not in use to keep it in check otherwise they got too unruly) and don’t cut the tails here, just hold the last stitch in place with a safety pin. You’ll find each ball in position to work another square when you get to its connecting square. Indeed, the instructions tell you not to cut the yarn after working the last stitch of a square once you get up into square 21, but nowhere do they tell you to make 8 little balls of yarn. I used skein #3 for the handle and have I’d guess a little more than half a skein left over.

Despite this little trick I still felt like I had a bajillion ends to weave in. Part of the reason was I worked half the first tier cutting the yarn after each square until it dawned on me that the bag was worked in eighths and so could have saved myself some weaving had I realized this and split skein #2 earlier on. The other reason was each skein also had several knots in it (say 4 or 5 EACH) so I still had lots to weave in.

I threw the finished bag into the washer and dryer with our regular laundry and it came out soft, pliable, and slightly smaller and tighter. I like it even better now. Also, since my last adventure with linen when I noticed the yarn got softer the more I unraveled and reknitted what I was doing, I worked these skeins about 10 minutes each in my hands, kneading and squeezing, before winding them into balls and starting this project. This made the linen easier to work with.

And one final thought: Euroflax isn’t exactly cheap. This is the most expensive tote bag I own.

I had a productive weekend: the Happy Hippo is looking pretty darn happy and the Net Duffel Bag is done! The weather, however, is not cooperating so I am unable to get a glamour shot so you’ll have to make do with this:

This is my corner of the coffee table which usually holds various works in progress. I grafted the hippo’s head on last night but left the tail for today (why? no idea) and you can see her tutu still needs elastic. She’s reclining on a bag containing a bundle of brown fiber that I’m attempting to spin into a 2-ply laceweight and sitting on a lovely EZ book that is helping me contemplate the next baby sweater to make. But first a summer dress for the hippo. Then I’ll do the photo shoot and she can go on her way.

The holes are lining up nicely:

Today I am on square 65 of I think 72, so I’m nearing the end of the body. Then comes the strap and I haven’t read ahead yet to see what is in store for me there. I hope it qualifies as bus knitting or this baby is never going to be finished.

The bee hat was well received. We heard from Mr. MmmYarn’s sister that our niece put it on and immediately informed her mother that she was a pollen jock. I call that a rousing success.

There is nothing in my bag yet, seeing as it’s just under about halfway done today. This is what the Net Duffel Bag looked like on Saturday:

That is the base plus the beginning of the sides. Each little square is knitted separately (16 squares in the base) and you can only knit two base squares before having to cut the yarn. Once you get up into the side tiers, the instructions have you putting the one remaining stitch of each square on a holder. I was confused by this (uh… it didn’t tell me to split any skeins into smaller skeins) and have been cutting my strand after each square. As you can see, I have been weaving in ends as I go; otherwise, I see myself suffering from a fit of denial of finishing when it’s done and it will be relegated to the hibernation pile. Anyway, tonight I think I will knit a square, rip it out, and measure how much yarn it took. Then I’ll calculate how many squares in each eighth of the circumference and cut off however many yards I need for those 6 or so squares that can technically be worked from a single strand. It will save me some weaving.

In the pattern, each square is numbered. How on earth to keep track of all those little modules? This is my solution to that quandary:

I pinned numbers to each completed square. As soon as it was enclosed on all four sides by adjacent squares, I removed its pin. This technique is working quite well. I am on square 36 of 70+, then there’s the border and handle. There is a way to go yet.

I like how the diagonal lines match up:

Extremely windy and hard to photograph, this was, hence the bizarre horizon.

I decided to knit both halves of Mystery Stole 4 at the same time, so side #1 got held up a bit while I got side #2 going.

You can see the little bit of glistening in the fabric, my tiny beads (the head of the crochet hook I’m using to add beads is nearly invisible in the photo). I mis-remembered the instructions at the bead store and bought blending-in beads rather than contrasting beads, so all you’ll ever see is some glistening in mine. I switched from Addi lace needles to short straight needles the other night which has sped things up a bit again.

I’m just halfway through the chart on clue #1 and clue #2 gets released Friday. I would be going faster, but I re-injured that top knuckle on my ring finger Sunday when a woman ahead of me on an escalator answered her cell phone a few steps from the bottom, then stopped stock-still at the end of the last stair to have her conversation. I managed to scramble backwards two stairs before the escalator ran me into her, nearly knocking her over, and in a chain-reaction effect, she knocked her kid over. Then she had the nerve to ask me what I thought I was doing. Ah, humans. However, it is noteworthy that it was not me being a klutz that caused the problem this time.

The little black purse is not going to make it into the suitcase Thursday night. Seed stitch is by nature slow, but there is also the problem of using an unknown quantity of yarn. Here’s what I had so far in the new size:

You’ll note I used the word “had”: that bit of Sherlock on the tube is all I have left; there’s no way it’s going to make it to square size. I grumbled a little about this at knitting group on Monday night and my friend suggested I look in Chinatown. She was right. I went there on my lunch break yesterday, and found something that will go on vacation with me:

A little cutesy for my taste, but the right size and style for dressing up a little to go out to dinner. Tonight’s pre-trip tasks include plant care, dealing with library books, ironing (ugh), and making wardrobe and knitting project decisions.

The Apres Surf Hoodie will stay home. I’m about a third of the way up the hood. It’s too big for travel knitting now.

The first clue for Mystery Stole 4 was released yesterday mid-morning to the joy of everyone eagerly awaiting the launch of this project. I was at work when it hit the Internet, and had also forgotten my MS4 supplies at home so I couldn’t get going on my lunch break, so I did not begin until last night’s round of travel planning was complete.

This is what I have so far:

That’s the first three rows, including the very slow row of one bead every other stitch. I have not yet searched the Internet to see who’s already done with clue #1 and who’s stuck bemoaning the first row of beads. My progress is going to be somewhat hampered the first week:

Goodness knows what I did to that top knuckle. I asked Mr. MmmYarn if he noticed me cursing after running into something somewhere and he just laughed and asked “which time?”. He knows I am such a klutz that it’s often hard to pinpoint which klutzy event caused the minor injury. This one, however, is not minor in my opinion — it’s cutting into knitting time (!!) and making typing hard.

The flat purse for travel is coming along slowly, too:

This is the Small Origami Bag in Folk Bags. At first I merrily cast on 64 stitches as instructed and knitted for 10″. Then I noticed it’s supposed to be a 14″ square and as I don’t want a chapstick-only bag, I measured my gauge (grrr… should have done that to begin with), ripped out, cast on 90 stitches, and started again. Then injured myself. Ah, well.

The yarn I’m using is Artfibers Sherlock (they don’t have it anymore); it looks like a small knitted tube. Click for the big version of the photo:

It’s hard to photograph but you can see that bit of white background peeking out between the strands of the chained tube. Sherlock likes to split so I have to knit carefully. Since being forced to slow down it’s working better, actually, as I’m not racing along willy-nilly, splitting the yarn every few stitches.

Bwuahahaha! This week’s bus knitting is not knitting, but crocheting:

That little blip of black and white crochet you see in the bottom left of this photo is a bag I made some 8 years ago. I’m really proud of that one as I put in a sewn lining… nearly a year after I crocheted it in a single day, ahem. Hey, I’m a knitter and not a sewer.

Now, does anyone reading this know how to make a jogless jog in single crochet so I can put some neat stripes into this new creation? Google has failed me this time: all I get is knitting references. Mmm… knitting. I think I’ll go work on socks tonight.

I finally had use of a washing machine last weekend and used the opportunity to felt three items that have been waiting around for a while.

The purple bag I made in July went from this:

to this:

Knitting details are in my original post, here. It shrunk from 9.25″ at its widest point and 8″ tall when lain flat to 8.5″ at its widest point and 6.75″ tall.

The second bag was the Pi Are Round bag I made in August. My sister-in-law saw me photographing it in the yard and decided she really wanted it, so this one’s for her. Knitting details and before-felting photos are here. The top still flops more than I’d like, so I need to hunt up some curved metal bit for the top. I am picturing a flat wire-like contraption with magnets or one of those clasps that closes with the two intersecting knobs (purse frame?). I have not begun looking yet. Whatever it ends up being, it will need to be lightweight. The brown part flattened out beautifully (it had ripples after I knitted it) and I’m very happy with the way this bag turned out:

It shrunk from 11″ across to 9.5″ across.

The last item to go for a swim was a hat I made in 2003 that I never was happy with. I made it in brioche stitch, which made it stretch to fit a large adult head, but it wasn’t wind-proof enough to make it useful:

It certainly is wind-proof now:

It is also now a child’s size small.

I also finished the little vest in which I experimented with steeks.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Silver Creek Yarns 100% Blue Face Leicester, colorway (or perhaps the sheep’s name): Elliot
Needles: size 4 for the body, size 3 for ribbing
Finished size:  26″ chest = 2-4 years old

I had concerns that the head-hole wasn’t big enough, but my knitting co-worker graciously tried it on and it went over her head, so I’m sure it will go over the head of whichever child gets it.

Lily of the Valley is finishe… no, not yet. I still need to tuck in some dangling ends and block it, but it is so very close!

Remember those two round shapes I showed off at the end of my last post? They turned into a small bag.

Here is one side:

And the other side:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 1 skein Noro Kureyon, 100% wool, color 180; about 1/4 skein Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, 85% wool, 15% mohair, color M-08
Needles: size 7
Size: medallions are 9″ across, bag is 11″ across with the brown border/strap

*With gratitude to Elizabeth Zimmermann for using this phrase on page 109 of “Knitting Around.”  

That little bit in EZ’s book always gets me to giggle. She mentions an old Pogo joke (aside: Pogo, it turns out, is an old comic strip (Wikipedia is a wonderful thing)). Howland’s talking about the math formula for a circle, pi = r squared, and his friend Churchy corrects him with “Pie are round, cornbread are square.” Hihihi. The math geek in me appreciates any geometry-related joke.  

My pi here is definitely round. Coincidentally, each medallion measures 9″, the right size for a pie. Anyway, I cast on each medallion from either end of a single ball of Kureyon and worked each round and round, pi-fashion, until I ran out of yarn. [See "Knitter's Almanac" if you need an explanation of pi for knitting.] Then I invisibly cast on for the strap and worked back and forth in stockinette, eating up one medallion stitch every row, until I decided it was time to stop and form the handle. There are no seams anywhere, just the one graft where the handle ends met up. It’s a little puckery but it will definitely hit a washing machine someday so it can shrink down and based on past experience with Lamb’s Pride I believe it will flatten out. I’m not so sure I like the full-circle at the top as it seems to want to gap unattractively. While it’s blocking I might fold the tops over each other, then add a button and buttonhole. But all that stuff has to wait until it’s been felted and I see how it comes together. I have a picture in my head of a future design similar to this, except I’ll make the body of the bag the shape of a wedge of watermelon rather than a full circle.

I wish I had a washing machine so I could felt it now.

In my last post I mentioned knitted Princess Leia buns; this week I learned someone out there has crocheted a Darth Vader helmet. Now that’s a resourceful use of beer cans!

I made two hats this week.

Hat #1:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 100% recycled silk (label says “Recycle Silk Ball,” “hand made in Nepal”)
Needles: size 5
Size: adult medium to large

This started out as a small bag, but I had it squashed up on a 16″ circular needle and never bothered to measure either gauge or the bag itself. I put in yarn over holes about an inch from the top (now the bottom) to leave space for a drawstring and left plenty of yarn to create a twisted cord tie, but when I cast off the bag it seemed rather on the big side. Not at all the little bag I pictured. So I put it on my head and found it was the perfect size for a hat. Frog, frog, frog, back to the yarn over row to remove the holes, then I knitted the end bit again. And this is what I got. I really like the colors in this one. If watch caps didn’t make my head look so weird I’d keep it. This silk is hard on the hands; probably would have been easier if I hadn’t used size 5 needles, but I wanted a tight gauge for the bag… which then turned out very well for the hat. 

Hat #2:

The decreases at the top look interesting:

Pattern: own: K3P3 rib, with knitted stitches in gold and purled stitches in teal
Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool, some color 8892 (teal) and some color 7826 (gold)
Needles: size 5
Size: child large

I got such a kick out of the two-color tan and cream hat I made last week that I pictured how one made in stripes might look. I was happily surprised with the result. The little bloops where the teal and gold meet make it interesting. Even though I used the same yarn and needles as I used for the brown and cream hat, this one ended up smaller. I suppose carrying the yarn on every row instead of on half the rows made the hat tighter. On the whole it’s still really flexible, stretchy enough to fit over the balloon I used for a head model, but not as stretchy as the other one.

This week’s bus knitting, when I stand back and look at it, looks like some sort of bra, or model breasts, or perhaps funky Princess Leia buns if I were to connect the pieces with a headband:

Trust me, I’m not making any of those things. Although the idea of knitted Princess Leia buns is kind of tempting. (Remember the Hallowig that knitty.com had a while back?)