Tuesday, August 24, 2010

What knitting needles bag?

In anticipation of the delivery of the What Knitting Needles? fabric from Spoonflower, I ordered the Aunties Two Old Port Carryall bag pattern, along with some other patterns, from  Keepsake Quilting (who delivered my order in pretty much record time).

I had to take the Fearless Fair Isle galley proofs to the FedEx office in Aberdeen yesterday, so I ran a few errands while I was up there, including picking out a lining fabric for the knitting camo (I could easily have designed and ordered coordinating quilting weight cotton fabric from Spoonflower, but that would have taken another 2 weeks for delivery, and though I am batty about Spoonflower, I am not so batty that I want to use $18 @ yard fabric as lining). I found this fantastic stripe which is part of the Sedona collection, by Laura Berringer, for Marcus Brothers, at the quilting/fabric/sewing machine store. It doesn't have all of the camo colors in it, but it matches well enough.
It's a little brighter in tone than the camo, but overall, is an excellent match.

I didn't take pictures of the bag construction, because those processes belong to the pattern instructions, but it was an interesting project- fiddly, and certainly not a quick-sew (it took me all afternoon and most of the evening and one broken needle, to assemble the bag, ). And since I used fabrics and batting (instructions for that method included), rather than pre-quilted fabric, it took even longer- not to mention that the canvas twill camo is heavy, making assembly an even slower process. But...
It's beautiful, no?

The bag is quite sturdy- it stands up without support, and is about 15" x 13", with 4 nice deep outer pockets (it was supposed to have inside pockets as well, but I didn't want to have to sew through all that extra bulk).

The handle construction is interesting (cotton cord inside a cloth tube, though I used several pieces of clothesline because I couldn't find the right size of cotton cord), and I'm not entirely sure that I attached them to the bag correctly (there was handsewing involved). Another photo or two of that step would have been helpful in the pattern. But overall, the bag went together very well, and I am extremely happy with it.

It's fully lined, with no raw edges showing inside or out. BTW- the matchy matchy striping there was purely accidental. The other side didn't line up at all.

And it's about 5" wide, which means there is plenty of room for whatever knitting project I want to carry.

And I made it.

1 comment:

maxine said...

wow!!! I wasn't in love with either fabric...but together...it is a show stopper...you have a great eye..along with your other talents.
maxine