Funky Little Bag

For those of you who haven't seen it in person or on Sarah's blog, here is a bag I knit (& Kiki finished) for Kiki as a Valentine's gift (at least that's what I read). The yarn is by My Paper Crane. Illanna picked it up for us in New York last summer.

There are 2 different skeins of yarn used here. The base is knit in a Fair Isle pattern that is very hard to see, but it sorta swirls around the bag. I'm finishing something tonight that uses the same pattern with a little more success. Both this & the current project are prototypes before I hand-dye yarn for the bag for which the pattern was originally designed. I've now modified the design for the final project so the pattern will be more visible.

The handle & closure used to be a belt purchased on clearance from Target. I find that cheap belts beat knitting I-cord any day.

The top & bottom (not shown - how did we forget to take a photo of the bottom?) are crochet. I made a long chain of each & then swirled them together to make this design.

Kiki lined the bag with plastic canvas to give it a little more structure. Normally I would felt luxurious hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn like this, but knitting it in a FI design that is not visible seemed lavish enough. For the lining Kiki used some of the last few pieces of her hand-dyed fabric from back in the day.

This little ribbon was what originally held one skein of yarn together. Kiki added a snap & made it an inside handle to hold all the little extras. No waste allowed at LusciousGraciousStudios.

Here you can see that the lid flips off trash-can-style thanks to that great belt.

Speaking of no waste, you can see Kiki used the last little pieces of the belt to add to one of the inside bags she made. That cool stripy fabric used to be the bottom of Lucy's cool stripy pants that were a little too long. One bag is perfect for DPNs and the other for small notions.

Kiki has found this funky little bag to be just right for her current sock project (there is always a current sock project, right?). It holds all of this and more!

Steve

p.s. Is anyone starting on either of our free for now patterns (Kate or Crazy 8's) or any of our other patterns, or using our tutorials, or even reading this blog? Send us pictures, e-mail a link to your blog post about it, leave us comments about anything (except current events or your cat), and we might just give you more free stuff.