Life's a Beach

Who doesn’t love a big lacy knit market bag? It can carry everything you may need with the ever expanding lace pattern. I have taken special pleasure in bringing such bags to the grocery store and watching the bagger fit my entire order into the seemingly tiny bag. Certainly not the most responsible way to get my groceries home, but we all need a little amusement. 

Dreaming of Sunshine

I am always searching for a perfect bag. In stores, online, finally I just started searching my own head. What did I want in a bag? What did I see commercially that I liked? What did I want to be able to carry around with me? This bag was dreamed up one spring when the department stores had all sorts of nicely finished leather patterns. I liked the idea of the texture of a bag lightening toward the top as I saw with leather that had flowery punches in the top half, or interlaced pieces toward the straps. Could I make knitting do that?

Three Rounds Full

Much like the Lily Valley Bag, the Three Rounds Full bag was born out of my experimenting with what felted material could do. Could you put eyelets into the fabric? How much of a shape could one really impart on the felted material if it was shaped while sopping wet? If the piece isn’t neatly sewn together, could the felting process impart structural integrity? The answer turned out to be “yes” to all of those questions. 

Lily Valley Bag

The Lily Valley Bag was the first pattern that I created. I had seen a few bags with the similar shape of triangles reaching up and becoming the straps of the bag. I had seen bags with layers sewn together to create different pockets and compartments. But none of these bags quite had the utility that I was looking for. I wanted something that could hold a good amount of whatever it was I wanted to be carried (yarn, groceries, the mishmash of items that occupy my purse). 

Fabulous Friday!

We finally got some sunshine, and I took a few quick glamour shots of my Sea Anemone Shawl. These were just quickies, and the pattern is still in progress (if I've started it, oops). I was able to get the general shape and feature some of my favorite components of this beautiful piece. 

WIPs Wednesday

Another accountability post. If I am taking weekly pictures of what I am working on and publicly sharing them, then I need to make progress on them or I will be embarrassed. So here are the projects I am working on, which includes a couple new treats.

Sea Anemone - Blocking

Good Morning and Happy Monday!

Here are some lovely shots of the Sea Anemone Shawl as it dries off.

Double Knitting part 2

Alright, now that everyone has cast on for their raindrops scarf, we are ready to dive in, right? Well even if you haven't started a double knit project right away, I hope to show you that its really not all that hard. 

Double Knitting

I released a new pattern on Tuesday. I know that I have my own take on double knitting, I just figured out the way that works best for me. Luckily for all of you in Internet world, I had the foresight to take some pictures while I started out on this pattern sample!

Sea Anemone Shawl

Last week, I decided to play with the idea of knitted circles. The interesting thing about knitting is that it is worked on a grid. You cast on x number of stitches onto a static needle, then you build rows on top of those x stitches. There are chances to manipulate your x number to shape the final product. Contrast that with crochet, which can be worked on a grid, but really the crocheter is only working one live (meaning you can pull it right back out) stitch at a time.

Finished Object Friday

I'm going to confess that I started this post on Monday at 11:45 am in hopes of motivating myself to complete at least one project from my post on Wednesday. You will just have to click the link to keep reading to see what (if anything) I have finished.

WIPs Wednesday

Today, I am tracking my current Works in Progress. Most of which you have seen previously, but I want to get them done in a timely manner to free up my mental energies to move onto other projects and ideas. Enjoy!

Manic Monday

At the end of February, Ravelry announced that it had reached 4,000,000 users (watch out Facebook!) I use this online tool all the time, for planning my own projects, tracking pattern popularity and even getting a guest-amite about how much yarn a particular design may end up taking. As part of their celebration, the team at Ravelry made up a series of info graphics demonstrating various data points about their users. You can read them all here, or just click past the break to see what struck me as most interesting.