Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The people have spoken

I was leaning towards starting Aline anyway, so you all pushed me over the top. So here is most of the body of the bag done. Aren't the colors COOL?? The cute little bee stitch markers are courtesy of Teresa (thanks, T!!) If you are suddenly inspired to cast on this pattern, make sure that you check Annie Modesitt's site for errata first. The instructions have you cast on 15 stitches and do 6 rows of garter stitch. Then you're supposed to pick up 15 stitches on each side. ??? I was enormously confused about how I was supposed to pick up 15 stitches in 6 rows, so I looked for corrections. In reality, you're supposed to knit 30 rows of garter stitch. That's a big difference, eh? My previous sock knitting experience helped clue me in to the problem. With 3 gussets to my credit so far, I knew 6 rows wasn't enough to pick up 15 stitches.
No harm, no foul, I just knit 24 more rows. =) I even did the optional lace pattern on the back, although the VDD (vertical double decrease...sl 2 as if to k2tog, k1, pass sl st over) gave me fits at first. I'm not so sure that it was worth it. Can you see the lace pattern over there to the left? No, I didn't think you could. I ran by Michael's last night to look for yarn for the lining (it calls for ribbon, and I had none...can you believe my stash failed me??). I wanted a turquoise that might show through. The bad news is that the only thing they had that matched was blue/dark blue/black variagated Incredible. The good news is that it was on sale for $2!
I actually have the flap all done now; all I need to do it knit the lining with the ribbon. But now I have started to think. Always a dangerous path.... I really, really like the color combination on the bottom of the bag. And it looks like the rest of the skein is along those lines. But the main body of the bag is a little redder than I wanted. If only I'd starting winding the ball from the other end of the skein!!! =( I am thinking of measuring out how much yarn is left in the skein to see if I have enough to knit another purse with it. If so, I can give this one as a gift and knit myself another one. (Whoah, somebody's going to get really lucky!!! We'll see which one of my nieces kisses up the best. ;) If I don't have enough...I may end up unravelling this and starting to knit from the other end....

2 comments:

Jean in Georgia said...

The purse looks great! Altho I can see your point, as reds generally aren't within your color scheme. I'm sure The Magic That Is Heather will figure out some way to make it work. :)

TeresaB said...

You're welcome for the stitch markers, thought they'd come in handy sooner or later. So what's this about nieces? What about friends that like red?

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