And so it begins....

Thanks to the generosity of 2 really cool
Sybermoms, AKA Girl Interrupted & Box of Rain, I know have the requsite supplies to knit a real bag.

So, I naturally proceeded to spend about a day and 1/2 searching for he perfect felted bag. Because, well, I have to have a pattern. I'm pretty sure I was about 1 instant message away from being banned by the Box. Seriously, I must have spent at least a day at Knitty Chick's Free Felted Patterns and at Knitting Central's free patterns for bags, totes & purses.

Naturally, nothing was just right, Goldilocks. So, I made it up. LOL


Cast on 60, knit for 40 rows, then pick up 20, 60, 20. Yeah. We're at the "picking up" stage.

Oh, did I mention the stripes? There's at least half a day, right there! LOL Because getting the perfect stripe pattern is important. Especially if that delays the oh-so-scary beginning a real project. I really liked the stripes on Knit Picks Farmer's Market Tote, but I didn't want that big of a bag and I only had two balls of yarn (btw, a ball winder has made it to the TOP of my Xmas list. Santa? You are paying attention, right?).

And the handle - did I mention that? Because I was thinking about just doing a Booga Bag or a Sopie, but didn't like the handle. I wanted a buttonhole handle, like the Lopi Tote, but I didn't want that bag itself. Yeah. You can see where this is going.

So, I just made it up. With many, many IM's to the most loverly Box of Rain. And hours spent on Excel making stripe patterns.

STFU. It worked. Or rather, it appears that it worked. The proof will be in the, um, felting.

We'll see. Because, I'm blogging instead of picking up stitches. Because it's intimidating. I can only watch the Knitting Help girl so much. It beats the hell outta Barney, though...