Kiss My Knits!

Behold! “The Tessima!”

Loosely based on the Sophie, but with obvious differences to account for Tessima’s need for a bigger bag (this is about 8X10) with mondo flair. Plus she sent me the really cool red Fizz and I just HAD to use it in a bag.

The other wool yarns are Ruby Red and Onyx in Lamb’s Pride worsted, which is a blend of 85% wool and 15% mohair to give it a nice sheen and little bit of fuzziness. The Lamb’s Pride felts like a dream, by the way. This only had to go through the machine once, with another little 5 minute spin for good measure.

Before starting the bag, I knit up a sample swatch with various yarns and then felted the swatch to determine how much it would shrink, and how well the various yarns would keep their pizzazz. As is often the case, the novelty yarns caused the swatch to flare slightly, so I worked some extra decreases into the bag to account for this. It still didn’t get very small near the top (I wasn’t sure whether it would or not until I pulled it out of the machine) so I’ve sewn in a narrow strip of male velcro, so that it doesn’t gape, and a wide strip of female velcro onto the opposite interior side so that the male velcro won’t grab the wool too much. We know how grabby the male of any variety can be.

I’m not giving away secrets by posting it, since she’s already seen a pic of it. So all that remains is to pop it in the mail after the holidays.

This bag was, frankly, a lot of work, since I had to keep switching colors and was also carrying along a double strand of the Fizz with the red. I think just weaving in all the ends was the worst part. At one point I renamed it “The PITA.” Still, I got a lot of ideas for Simucon bags. Tessima will have to tell me if the Velcro works, so I know whether to ever do that again.

I’m already on to the next project! Whee!

I am now totally in love with the patterns from Black Sheep Bags. They were the source for the booga bag pattern, and that went so well that I decided to try one of their teeny tiny bags as a birthday gift for my niece. Here it is pre-felting with a deck of cards for scale. Here it is completed. Yes, I own Star Trek playing cards, I’m that much of a geek.

I think on the next go-round, I’m going to modify the pattern some and also add a button to help keep the flap closed. I’ve learned enough now to change the patterns to my own taste. This is fun!