Mary’s Summer Bag

Or rather a bastardized version of it. Because the whole point of knitting the bag was freedom. I’m happy with this knit, I was little leery of it before filling with with stuff. But stuffed it looks good, and it’s stretchy, really stretchy. I could have pulled it up over the top of the beach blanket. It’s stuffed with a full size beach blanket, large water bottle, swimsuit and a book and there is plenty of room for more.

Changes, uh, what didn’t I change. I used Sinfonia that I had in my stash from a clearance sale at Hobby Lobby. I didn’t have the size 13 needles it calls for because I haven’t order them for my KnitPicks Options set yet, so I used a size 11. I did cast on and knit the bottom as directed, but I picked up less stitches than called for because 90 seemed like a lot. I accidentally did one more lace repeat than it called for in the first section so I just went with it for the others. I quit when I thought it was big enough. I didn’t care about the ruffled edge so I didn’t add it. I tried to crochet the drawstrings but they didn’t pull smoothly and I don’t do Icord, so I bought some cording that works great!

Over all I’m happy with it and I’ll do the small version soon. I’m working on a series of bags, all of which will be stuff with fun stuff and given away as gifts.

Just so you can see how much I changed it my version on the left, the “official” version on the right.

What’s wrong with this picture?

And something is, although I’m not sure you can tell from this angle. I didn’t realize it until I had blocked the Drop Stitch Lace Tank, something was wrong. I figured out what it was and took it to Sit n Knit this week to see if they could tell too. They could. One side of the front has 6 more rows, or one more pattern repeat. I’ve known about this for weeks which probably explains my lack of desire to knit. If I want to wear this, and I do, I have to find the ends, unseam the shoulder, rip back and add 6 rows to the other side. Right now I can’t even bring myself to look at it, I do want to wear it this summer so maybe next week I’ll bring myself do deal with it.

In the mean time I’m still working on Mentionable , but it’s not really photo worthy. I also start this bag with some Sinfonia I had in my stash, I’m also going to make the small size and I’ll be making a third bag from a pattern in my head.  I’ve had bags on the brain and was looking for one to knit (and one to sew more on that latter) so when I saw this free pattern in my Knitpicks flyer it felt like fate.   I’m planning to give two of them away as gifts. It’s comfort knitting, if I make a mistake on these it wont be the end of the world, plus I’m using stash yarn.