Saturday, September 10, 2016

New Pattern - Allegorical

My new pattern Allegorical is now available!

It's a shawl knitted on bias from one end to the opposite border.  The shawl started with textured stitches and followed by stranded colorwork worked in flat (really, colorwork in flat is not as hard as you think.)

Suggested yarn is sport weight. I used madelinetosh Tosh Sport.





Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Sewing Messenger Bags



I'd been obsessed with making messenger bags this past week.  Well, I should say I was more obsessed with trying to figure out the best way to do it than the actual bags themselves.

Based on the following must haves for me, I drafted the pattern and made the design.
1.  Not too many compartments. I hate bags with lots of compartments.  I'm too unorganized that I'd spend forever looking into different pockets for things.
2.  But, separate pockets for the 3 things I use the most, phone, keys, and wallet.
3.  Absolutely a zipper at the top that closes up the bag so I can just throw things into the bag.



So I designed a big pocket at the front that can be easily accessed under the top flap. A line is sewn down the middle to divide it into one pocket for keys, one pocket for phone. The bag itself has a zipper at top, and an inner pocket for wallet. Rather than rectangular looking bags, I also decided I wanted more rounded corner ones

The first bag was made with yellow canvas material.  I was happy, but when I was top stitching the zippers I realized another way to streamline the steps.  To prove me theory would work, I made the Chevron bright color one.  Because it took me some thinking during the making process, it didn't go super fast like I thought I would.  I then went on to make the third one with patterned upholstery fabric which came about smoothly with the patterns and steps finalized.  


I love my bags.  My favorite one is probably the zigzag bright colors one because I just love the fabric pattern. I totally did't need these many bags, but I simply couldn't stop making them.





Thursday, August 4, 2016

Diabolique

My new lace shawl pattern Diabolique is up!
The stitch design was based on shapes of bearded iris.



It's a crescent shape shawl knitted top down with plain Stockinette Stitch at to the top followed by lacy border.
It uses 475 yards of fingering weight yarn and US #5 / 3.75 mm needle