KnittyOtter

FO: Carrot Stripes Zipper Pouch

Pattern: An Original Otter Design
Yarn: Cascade 220  In Grey 8401 & White 8010 & Dalegarn Tiur (60% Mohair and 40% New Wool) In Green 7562 & Orange 3436.
Yardage:  I used the leftover bits from the Bunny Bag and I still have enough of the orange and green to make that Pumpkin Bag I'm thinking about.  So Yardage used = ? *L*
Yarn Source: Deluxe Yarns 
Needles: Clover Takumi -  US 9 / 5.5mm 16" Circular
Gauge: 9 Stitches Per Inch
Other Items Used: I used a Coats & Clark 7" All Purpose Zipper. I had to shorten it by an inch. That was the smallest size I could find. The Carrot Fabric was by NorthCott, called Is it Spring Yet. Guttermann durable thread in a creamy off white color. Assorted Sewing Needles & Pins. I broke a lot of needles and pins sewing this and the bunny bag. o.0

Notes: I started knitting this tool pouch on July 21 and I finished it a few days later. Then I let it sit until this past Saturday August 19th before I started sewing the lining and attaching the zipper. I finished last night. :D I'm muchly pleased.

I knitted it up in the round like a big sock without a heal or toe decreases and then I grafted the ends together like the toes of a sock. *L* Pretty simple. Just decide what you want and find whatever way works to do it. That part was super easy and no big deal.

I made the mistake of trying to hand felt it though. I figured if Hot water was good for felting REALLY hot water would be even better. All that did was make the orange yarn color run. Then I finished it off in the washing machine like a normal person.

For the pouch I just figured a simple envelope fold over piece would be fine. So I measured, Ironed, cut & sewed up the lining. Leaving some overhang flaps so the part I sewed the zipper onto would be double thick.

Then I sewed the zipper onto the pouch, after pinning it into place that is.

Once that was done it was a piece of cake to sew the zippered lining onto the knit felted pouch. :D

Things Learned: Making smaller stitches when sewing make it look much neater even if it does take longer. :D Don't use boiling water when hand felting without first doing a swatch test of the yarn you will be using to see how it reacts. Have LOTS of extra Pins and Needles on hand. I must be stronger than I thought cause I kept breaking the damn things. :/  A good pincushion too. You can't have that thing blowing away with the wind should sew outside at all. o.0 I also learned I think I want a sewing machine. I think it might be a lot faster than sewing by hand. *L*

Biggest lesson learned. Stop being afraid and JUST DO IT. I was so damn scared to cut the fabric and that wasn't so bad. Then I was scared to cut the zipper and that wasn't so bad. Then I was scared to sew the zipper on and that was nothing. :D Sure it's not perfect, but I tried!

Here is the Bunny Bag & the Carrot Stripes Pouch Together!

I also made some matching Stitch Markers to go with the kit. :D

The Carrot beads are the ones Cookie was able to find for me at her LYS. :D Thank you, sweetie!

I'm mailing off my KSKS Package today. It was supposed to have been out Friday, but I needed a bit more time. I've been in communications with my person though so they know to expect it a bit late. After they get their package I'll post a piccie of all the goodies I sent them. :D *happy dance*

Until then I leave you with this:

This is a theme kit designed especially for my person if you're wondering what's up with all the carrots.  She is a bunny and I hope she likes it. :D

FO: Bunny Bag

This is my Bunny Bag. :D

What does every bunny need? A bag to hold heads in of course. :P The bag I first envisioned was going to be a Bunny Head complete with Big Bunny Ears.

Right. No that didn't work out. I was running out of the lovely soft grey yarn and couldn't get any in the same lot. So instead of making a Bunny Head Bag I made a Carrot Bag. Cause that's the way Bunnies roll. Good for me my KSKS person listed these colors as her Fav. Makes sense. Bunnies do like carrots afterall. ;^)

So I present to you the Bunny Bag. An Original Otter Design. ;)

Pattern: My First Original Thought Out To Completion Knit Design :D
Yarn: Cascade 220  In Grey 8401 & White 8010 & Dalegarn Tiur (60% Mohair and 40% New Wool) In Green 7562 & Orange 3436.
Yardage:  Total of the four skeins I'd say I used roughly 310 yards. I have just a bit left of the white and grey Cascade and at least half of each skein of the green and orange Dale. The Dale was thinner than the Cascade so I double stranded it for knitting. Which was cool because it made the carrots be a little raised and it looks super neat.
Yarn Source: Deluxe Yarns - Reno's Friendliest Yarn Source! This is the store I currently consider my Home LYS.
Needles: Clover Takumi -  US 9 / 5.5mm 29" Circular
Gauge: 9 Stitches Per Inch / Aspect Ratio 1.368

Notes: I wanted to use my own design for this. I've never knitted a bag from a pattern before, but it seemed like a good idea to jump in feet first. I've learned a lot and my next bag will be even better. :D I got the idea for how I wanted to do this from a knit bag Cookie sent me months ago so I could see what felting was like. It looked like the bottom was a knit and then the stitches picked up. So I decided on a shape for my bottom piece and went from there. The shaping was a simple enough thing to reason out. I just did some simple decreases where it seemed logical for them to be. This bag has it's flaws and is by no means perfect, but it's fun and made especially for my KSKS person who I'm hoping will love it muchly.

I started knitting this bag with the idea of the Bunny Head on July 4th. That's why the bag has a Triangle bottom. I was going to make the bag have a rounded shape with a side that was the face forward end. Plus it would open up the bottom of the bag with room to keep yarn and all the sock kit stuffies. Later that day it became painfully obvious that I was not going to have enough of the grey yarn to make it as I was picturing it. I wanted the bunny ears to be big and floppy and grey, a grey that was a perfect match. So the next day I went to My LYS and looked around at the Cascade. By this point I had the idea for doing Intarsia carrots in my head. They didn't have any orange though. Then I thought maybe I'd just do some embroider carrots on it with some really cool looking shiny silky cotton stuff I saw, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do and I was on a deadline to get my yarn and get out of there. I was also taking a flight in the next few days and needed to get my project stuff together so I'd have something to work on to stave of the insanity of air travel. *L* The lovely proprietor who is ALWAYS helpful and friendly asked what I was looking for and I told her, then she went to another room of the store and picked out the lovely soft Dale. :D Perfect. The store is 4 rooms of Yarn and knitting/crochet goodies, by far the biggest selection of yarn in one place here in Reno. :D Next to the orange was a perfect matching green so I grabbed those and the white cascade along with some Bobbins to help me with working with the multiple colors and headed home to finish packing and get started on the carrots.

It was then that I decided I better chart out what I wanted these carrots to look like. I looked online to remind myself what a real carrot looks like. It's been years since I've really looked at a full size carrot. Now all I ever have are those Baby Carrots. I think that's kinda sad. I remember having big old fashioned carrots when I was a kid and pretending I was a bunny. What's up Doc? ;)

So after deciding what  general shape and size I was going for I drew a few rough carrots and decided I wanted it to be a slanty carrot and not just an upright carrot. At this point I needed some knitting graph paper. So I went to Google. TO THE GOOGLE_MOBILE!!!

I love Google. I'd have Googles Babies if I could. :P

Okay not really. That's just weird, but as this is how my day/week/life has been going lately, why not. Embrace your inner weirdness! But only if it's cute, cause otherwise go clean your bathroom instead or something. :P

(I think I need a Pepsi. I've been craving one all morning... I think it might calm me down. No, Really. o.0)

Anyway on Google I looked up knitting graph paper and came up with Knitter's Graph Paper at Needle Pointers. I played around with drawing some carrots on the graph paper until I decided on my general shape and size and then I plotted it out with colored markers and that was that. (Click image for a better view. It was all squished at the smaller size.)

Here is the chart if anyone who might happen upon this should ever decide they want to knit carrots for any reasons. *L*

It took surprisingly no time at all to finish the knitting portion of the bag. I was done with everything except the iCord by the time my plane landed in AnnLand. I didn't knit the week I was there, but I did go shopping at a yarn store there. *GRIN* I got some lovely sock yarn for my KSKS Person as well as some cool needles and notions and even the pattern.

Side Note: On the flight back I worked a little on the second sock. I was also reading Hugh Laurie's "The Gun Seller". Very Good Book. Go Get it! :P

Y'all know I think he is the sexist bitch ever right? Okay well now you do. :P (But only when he's HOUSE and all grumpy n' shit. *L*)

(See need a Pepsi, this is a public blog for fucks sake. o.0)

While in AnnLand I also went to a store there and FINALLY found some fabric with carrots in it. I had to go to 5 stores between Reno and AnnLand to find that stuff. None online either. o.0 Crazy! I was getting desperate at that point and was thinking I'd have to get some white or cream fabric and rubber stamps with carrots and some real dyes to make the stuff. Not Kidding.

I also went to a bead store there looking for carrot beads. Nada. None here in Reno either. The lovely and talented Cookie found those in her neck of the woods for me. Three States and the Internet explored to find carrot beads. Either nobody wants carrot beads or they are rare and valuable and should be coveted at all costs. o.0 Precioussss?

Okay so after I got back to the land of the sane I finished the iCord and washed it to felt it like 4 or 5 times. It was slow going. I hate my energy efficient washer. I'm going to beg Cookie to felt the next thing I do. That or go to a laundromat. o.0

I blocked it with plastic bags and packing peanuts. When you squeeze the air out of the bag you can pretty much mold it to whatever shape you want kinda like clay. So neat! :D

Then I let it sit for the last month as I was terrified to cut into the hard to find carrot fabric. During this time to do anything but face the cutting of the fabric I started a kitty blankey and finished the socks as well as knit and hand felted a matching pouch to go with the Bunny Bag, sans carrots this time though. Just stripey.

On August 6th it couldn't be held back any longer. I HAD TO START LINING THE BAG. o.0

It wasn't so bad as I feared. I've never sewn anything before, well that one time in the 7th grade when they had us sew a crappy heart shaped pillow, but I never finished that... but I digress... again... so having no idea what I was doing I just did what I thought seemed reasonable. Well that and I went through anything I had that was sewn and looked at how it was done. No real help there as it was all machine sewn. I even got a book on sewing. Can you say lost? Oy.

But I made it through. It's functional if not pretty. *L* I had to drop the idea of the pocket as it would have taken up too much space and made it lumpy.

I have no idea of this was the right way, but it's the way I did it and as there aren't any sewing police I figure it's all good. Right. So I made the lining and sewed it up into a pouchy thing and then sewed it to the bag itself. I worked on the sewing part again last night, so it took two nights for me to do that. Plus I put the last inch of stitches in this morning to finish it up. So the actual complete date is today, August 14. ;)

Things Learned: When picking up stitches for the base of the bag, make sure you get them all otherwise it will bunch up kinda weird after felted. o.0

This bag is a lot of firsts for me. My first Intarsia (well I made a small swatch with a circle once), My first original creation, my first iCord, my first knitting with more than two colors of yarn, my first chart creation.

Basically I just kinda figured it all out as I was going along. I had an image of what I wanted in my head and then I just had to make that happen.

I think I'm going to make myself a bag similar to this in the next month or so. Only instead of carrots I'll make it with Pumpkins and vines, like my Pumpkin Patch. :D It should be a fun  Autumn Knit as well as a cool Autumn Bag. Or I might design a spooky Halloween bag. I haven't decided yet. I think I want Both! *L* 

I'm really proud of myself for this. It may not be much, but I made it from nothing inside my head and that's pretty damn cool. :D

Rose Garden Bag

Sunday night I wanted to start something new. I  wanted to do something besides the weird swatches and wash cloth type things I had been playing at making. I hadn't even used wool yet for fear I'd waste it. Don't worry I'm getting over that. Kinda.

I grabbed some funky Lion Brand Landscapes Rose Garden yarn from my stash. It's 50/50 wool and acrylic so if I messed up it wouldn't be the end of the world. (Because you know the world will END if I mess up using good wool. o.0)

I hadn't yet attempted to use a pattern at this point. I'm very fearful of patterns. One killed my donkey when I was a kid... wait that's not true. I'm just a big pattern chicken. *hangs head in shame* Plus I don't know all of the  "stuff". Yesterday I was looking at a pattern that told me to slip. I get what the abbreviations are, I just haven't learned all the things I need to do. Thankfully Google can lead me to wonderful places with answers, but that takes time to go through and I really wanted to do something right then and there. (Yesterday I started something using a pattern, but that's for a different post. I'm getting there bit by slowly moving bit.)

I decided to do a simple fold over bag. I wanted a bag I could use for small projects. Something I could use to hold two needles and a small skein of yarn along with my little notebook I use to write down which row/stitch I'm on.

When I was playing around with stitches last week I noticed that a garter stripe will make a clean fold in the knitting. That was kind of cool so I decided to do a stockinette stitch for 33 rows then two garter stripes to make the fold then 33 rows to finish the other side. I made it 40 stitches wide using #10 needles. After that was done it was a simple matter of seaming up the sides and adding handles. I was having difficulty with the thickness of yarn and lack of DPS's in a larger size so I had to set aside the idea of using an icord to make the handles. I did this twisty thing with the yarn that I saw in a book. Literally just having four strands of the yarn twisted until it folded over. Then I seamed those on. I felt it looked pretty nifty for a newbie project at that point but my purpose was to attempt to felt the thing so that's what I did next.

I finished the body of the bag Tuesday night and did the handles Wednesday night. Yesterday morning (Thursday) I washed it three times to felt it. It's not as felted as a pure wool bag would be, but it still looks pretty neat. :D

Here are some pictures of the bag.

Before Felting:

After Felting:

In Use:

On Cat As Cape 1 - pre-felting:

On Cat As Cap 2 - pre-felting:

Don't worry about cat abuse. She likes all the attention she can get. ;)

That's the biggest project I've done so far. It took two balls pf yarn.

I can't wait to see what I can do once I really learn what I'm doing and how to follow a pattern. *L*