Maccabags!

Oh oh!

Here's Sam having a lilttle sleep in my sewing basket. Oh oh. But he doesn't seem to mind that it's just a tad too small ....

And here's a bag I made this past winter.

I put some sewing paraphanalia in it and parked it on the window sill. Oh oh. Summer came.  Here's what the facing-the-window-side looks like now. Call me crazy, but I sort of like this fading effect. Which, I suppose, is fortunate.

Just Try Knitting Again

I am so bad at posting this month! A couple of days of holiday, a September vacation to plan, plus the (very) odd ray of sun, and the whole blog thing goes pear-shaped. I am going to do some bag sewing this weekend though, so that should be fodder for posting.

In the meantime, I decided I would knit something. I read Kyoko's great blog, and she had inspired me to pick up the ole needles again. It has been 5 years - maybe more since I knitted a stitch.

Perhaps it would have been a good idea for me to ease myself into this rediscovery of knitting by tackling something small, easy and fast. Oh no. Not me. I found a pattern (can' t be difficult, it is only a scarf) and jumped right in and bought the book it was in (a bit pricey, but I liked another shawl/scarf and one of the hats in the book, too).

 

Kimono Ribbon Woven Scarf

Louisa Harding, The Accessories Collection

And here is the yarn - the blue for the scarf, the variegated for weaving into a lacy ladder created when knitting with the blue. Phaw! Piece of cake, no?

NO!  This ribbon yarn is so, so lovely - the colours are gorgeous and it shimmers and shines, and ....  SLIPS! And because it slips, it is impossible to unpick when I make an error - so three times now I have started - made a mistake and had to pull the whole thing out and start again. The first attempt, I had to begin again after knitting about 4 rows, then the next time was after about 12 rows , and the third time, I had knit about 32 rows. For goodness sake! There are only 25 stitches to get through per row, and the directions are pretty simple:

1st Row: K6, (K2tog, [YO] twice, sl1, K1, psso, K5) twice, K1.

Next row: (K8, P1) twice, K7.

How hard can that be? I know how to read the instructions and I should know how to execute them. But somehow, I am creating an extra stitch (inconsistently) and I CAN'T SEE HOW!!!!!! Using "normal" yarn, I would "undo" until I was on a row where I still hadn't gone wrong and go again. But this lovely ribbon just slithers away from me and won't stay still to be picked up on the needle again. Ai-yi!  I'm determined, though.

if anyone has tried Kimono Ribbon and knows some tricks to working with it - PLEASE let me know. In the meantime, I think a large glass of white wine is in order!

Why I went Small

What's the opposite of being on a roll? Whatever it is, I seem to be on one of them. Not the roll, but the not-roll. A couple of weeks ago, I had to re-do a full size bag because I somehow managed to get the interfacing buckling under the exterior fabric, and then last weekend I made a great BIG carpet bag,  with which I am not pleased.  And this weekend? Well, apparently it's true: Trouble Comes in Threes.

1. Two weeks ago:  BMBR (Bag Must Be Redone)
2. Last weekend:    BCBD (Big Carpet Bag Disappointment),  and
3. This weekend:    PP (Problem with Polkas).

But I was ready for Trouble # 3 - I had gone small!  I figure if a small project goes south, then at least I haven't used up so much fabric.The first of these little pouchy purses is the PP:

I'm ok with the red one, but the blue one? Here's what happened. I did not pre-launder the fabric - I know, I know, asking for it. I encountered a stubborn wrinkle during the final pressing so I sprayed a little water on the polka dot fabric  - AND SOME DYE FROM THE BLUE BACKGROUND RAN INTO A WHITE DOT! INSTANTLY!

I swore sighed, and washed the entire bag, and it's better, but there is still a bit of a blue tinge to the white polkas. Disappointing, too - I like the 50's look of the combination of polka dots and stripes on the bias. On the bright side - the bag, or any part thereof, did not shrink.And maybe the tinge makes it look a little vintage. (Used).

Here they are opened up:

So I think I will continue to go small until I have at least a "small" string of successes. Like two in a row might be good. I'm going to be doing a table at a craft evening in October - maybe now is a good time to start building up an inventory of kids' bags?

How the Union Jack Got It's Stripes, Part Deux

The finished Union Jack Bag now that it's got all of it's stripes on. For the story, see this post.

 

How the Union Jack Got Its Stripes

 I saw a photo of a skirt the other day, and it had a British flag appliqued onto it - only it wasn't in red, white 'n blue. And I thought:

• that's cool
• I could do that with a bag
• heh heh

And so, on Saturday it was rainy and cold, and I sat down and tried to draw the flag as it would look on a bag - it took me way too much time to figure out how long the diagonal stripes would have to be, and what the angles should be, and then to get the proportions looking good. Eventually, I was satisfied. I cut everything out and laid all the stripes on top of the bag front - so far so good. Then I sewed them all on and frayed the edges. Then I debated for another long time about types and lengths of straps. I was getting tired just thinking. FINALLY decided on regular straps and set to work finishing the bag.

And then I sat and looked at it - something was wrong - it just didn't seem to pop the way I had expected it to. Were the colours too dull?  What was it!!??!!

The next morning I came downstairs and started looking again. What? What? I was in the process of deciding that maybe the widest stripes were too wide - and - doh! See what the trouble is? The bag was 2 stripes short of a load! I've drawn them on below - I'm still awed by my stupidity. Especially after all that thinking.

The final two stripes are now cut out and I've frayed them all up and laid them on top, and sure enough - now the Union Jack Wannabee zings. But here's the trouble - this bag is lined, so you have to sew those babies on BEFORE you put the bag together. I am going to have to hand sew them on - which will take me hours longer than if I'd been up to sussing this out in the beginning. (yeah, yeah, fail to plan --> plan to fail).

Will I succeed? Stay tuned. I'll post the finished bag if the hand-sewing thing works. (Have also had the idea for the promised tutorial, so I will do that at the same time).

But there is an interesting thought here - you know how we're told that the Union Jack is made up of the crosses of St. Andrew, St. George and St. David (or is it Patrick?).  I figure that's a load - it's obvious to me now that they just  played around and added stripes till they got the zing factor going ...