Good things come in 3's

I finished my Dr Bag...


...as well as my Scarf Askew, which is the 2nd Christmas project I've completed.


And although it's not newly finished, my Clementine Shawlette (the 1st Christmas project I did) is newly blocked, and I now have a better picture of it.


More info in the gallery.

Anatomy of a Bag

I'm done knitting the Dr Bag and am working on the finishing. I used the recommended yarn, but only single-stranded, not double-stranded, so it ended up being a much more manageable size for me. I really love the herringbone pattern.


Not only is the front of it pretty (at the top), but I also like the reverse side (at the bottom)--it looks like a lovely patterned berber carpet!

Now, the pattern has a seam allowance at the tops of the front and back pieces. You're supposed to fold these over and encase a rod of some kind to provide stability for the top of the bag. Since my bag is small and is not that much bigger than the handle, I decided to fold the seam allowance over the handle itself and just backstitch it down.


To make sure that I was picking up a straight line of stitches below when sewing down the seam allowance, I first basted in some contrasting yarn. This let me see 1. that the line I was using was straight, and 2. that there wouldn't be show-through on the other side if I picked up those particular stitches.


Done! Next was the seaming. Instead of using the pattern directions, I decided I wanted my seams on the inside, so I used a chain of crochet to join the pieces together. The purse needed a bit more heft and stability, so I added interfacing. Now, I bought some Pellon heavyweight (supposedly) fusible interfacing. But I couldn't get the darn thing to stick! I mean, I was ironing till my pressing cloth was almost crispy! I even tried ironing 2 pieces of interfacing to each other, just to see if the adhesive was working. Nope. Luckily, I had some Therm O Web's HeatnBond Ultrahold in my sewing stash and used it to stick the interfacing to the knitting. As you can see, I interfaced the entire front, back, and bottom pieces, but only part of the side pieces, since the tops of the sides need to be more pliable.



And here it is, able to stand up by itself. I still need to work on the closure and the lining, which I hope to do tomorrow.

Have bag, will travel

I am traveling and brought along a new project. It's the Dr Bag from Knit 2 Together. I'm calling it that because it's a shorter version of the Doctor Bag. I'm using the recommended yarn--Manos de Uruguay--but I'm not double-stranding it. I really don't need a bag that is as huge as the one in the original design, but I love the herringbone stitch and the shape of it. Using only 1 strand, I'll be getting dimensions that are about 80% of the original. Plus, I can use less yarn, which is good, because it's pretty pricey. The herringbone pattern is supposed to be 8 rows to create each "zig" and "zag," but I've done 12 rows for each instead to make up for some of the visual impact lost by using single instead of double strands. This is a really fun knit for me. The only thing I'm worried about at this point is that the resulting knit fabric will be too floppy to hold the shape--I assume it would have been a lot more stiff with 2 strands. I think this can be remedied by putting some plastic mesh stuff and a liner on the inside, or by adding boning as Monique did, but we'll see.