Lady of the Forest progress

I'm making steady progress on the Lady of the Forest. I've just started the right front. I've made a couple of glaring (to me) errors, but so far, have managed to keep them on the wrong side, so I can live with them. I really like this colorway, it's perfect for spring.

Brea bag - finished!

Whew! I really like to push deadlines, but it will go out in the mail tomorrow morning, and my exchange partner should have it by Wednesday or Thursday. The panels were the easiest and quickest part. The seed stitch gusset took forever, and finishing took almost as long. I forgot to crochet the tops until after I sewed the gusset, so it is a tad bit higher than it should be. All in all, it was a fun knit, and I love how it came out. I think I'll be making another one for myself. Since the purse handle came in a set of 2, I already have the handle. :)

Yarn: Cascade 220, 2 skeins
Color: 9420
Needles: 7

Hmmm

I really didn't like this bag when I took it out of the washer after felting, but after a week or so, I think it's starting to grow on me. I've decided to go ahead and line it, add the buttons, and see what it looks like finished. There are still some holes in odd places, but I don't think they'll be noticeable once it's lined. I'll go ahead and see what happens.

Brea bag almost complete

I just need to finish knitting the gusset and put it all together. It looks like it will need to be lined after all, but I think this bag deserves it. It's coming out very nicely so far. The front piece went much faster, since I got smart, and used a size 5 needle on the left, instead of a 7. Much less strain on my wrists that way, and the yarn didn't get nearly as fuzzy from being forced along. I'm a little leery of charts still, but I think this pattern would have been much, much easier to follow if I had charted it.


This is roughly what I envision the finished bag will look like. It's going to be hard to part with it! Once this is in the mail, I can get back to the Lady of the Forest. Or that yummy bag of Karaoke that wants to be a Lady Eleanor.

2nd bag for ITEIII

My B4 bag didn't turn out too well, in fact, it could be a doll's purse and it's still not completely felted. So I'm making the Brea bag from Berocco instead. I had 2 skeins of Cascade 220 in a beautiful red in the stash, and since my pal's favorite color is red, I went for it. I'm almost finished with the back. Decreasing 8 stitches every other row certainly makes the rows go faster! After ripping row 3 back 5 times, I finally got the pattern, so the front should go much quicker. The fabric feels very heavy, so I'm hoping I won't need to line it. My sewing skills are pretty much non-existent. I found a great pair of handles at a LYS, along with a bamboo button that should give it a nice summery feel.

Oops. I fell off the wagon.

I had an errand to run, for a friend, at a LYS, Full Thread Ahead. Honest! She was desperate for some Misti Alpaca Lace in Cranberry, and couldn't find it anywhere on the East Coast. Luckily, Full Thread Ahead had some in stock. So, poor me, I had drive up to Los Altos to pick it up for her.
I've been ruminating on a Lady Eleanor in SWTC Karaoke, and they had plenty, in just about every color. So I picked up a few skins, ok, a bagful in the New Splash colorway. I saw some color gradient kits at Stitches this past weekend in these same colors, and loved the colors, but didn't love the projects.




Then I was assaulted by a rogue skein of Schaefer Yarns Helene in the Toni Morrison colorway. It was absolutely stunning; I couldn't take my eyes off of it. There was a brief debate about whether or not I should get it that somehow morphed into, Do I want the Toni Morrison or the Indira Ghandi colorway? Toni Morrison won. Isn't it scrumptious?






I've also made progress on the Lady of the Forest since yesterday.The colors are nice and soft. They remind me of the trilliums my great-grandmother and I would find on walks in the redwood forest when I was growing up.

Lady of the Forest

I've finally started on Lady of the Forest, a kit I bought last year, and promptly buried in the stash. I just wasn't liking anything else I had on the needles, so I decided to dig through the stash for inspiration. I found the kit and decided to cast on.
Skunk approves of the yarn, Fleece Artist Silk Stream in Paris Memory.









Here are the first 18 rows. It's a quick knit, and so nice to knit all the way across, after all these short rows I've been working!