been working on some bags

Actually, I finished working on this bag about a month ago, but yesterday I just finally gave it to Narie, for whom it was a Christmas present. That's right, a Christmas present, 8 months late. But it wasn't really that bad! I had the knitting and felting done by Christmas, I just wanted to put a zipper in it to make it a functional bag. I don't feel like little hand bags are all that useful if stuff keeps falling out of them. So I stalled for months and months. I'm so not good at sewing. But I finally got the zipper in. I messed it up royally of course. I didn't pin it first, so it doesn't line up correctly, but it zips, and stuff will stay in, and it just lies a little crooked now. It makes it more charming of course. And now after telling the story, I realize that the fact that it was almost ready for when it was supposed to be a present and then took so long to finish the last little bit is much worse than have the whole thing not nearly ready in time. Oh well.

A little about the bag... It's my own design, knit of Peace Fleece in Moscow Magic Pink and Antarctica White. Knit in the round on size 13. The snowflake was a complete pain to do. I made the mistake of thinking it would be easy to knit it using intarsia. It wasn't easy. In retrospect I came up with the idea of embroidering it on, so that body of the bag would have been much quicker to knit. I assume that that would felt up reasonably well. I'll have to try that next time.

This cute little clutch was knitted much more recently. I finished with the knitting just last week. It's a pattern from 25 bags to knit by Emma King. This is the very first time I've ever embellished anything I've knit. Isn't the little daisy cute? The white cotton yarn (Henry's Attic Inca organic cotton in Ecru) isn't the best choice for doing it, but I don't have much else in stock that would go well. The pattern calls for 5 daisys per side, but the 2 I've done so far (front and back) took so long I might just leave it like this. But with practice it'll probably go quicker. The body of the bag is knit again with Peace Fleece in Kamchatka Seamoss. Because the weight of Pleace Fleece worsted is heavy than the Rowan Kid Classic called for, I didn't double the yarn throughout as the pattern calls for. The dimensions still worked out pretty similar using number 9 needles. I'm going to sew in a zipper again, but this time pin it so it goes on straight, plus I'm going to line the bag. I just feel like it will be more practical to have it lined, since it's not a felted bag, and stuff put in the bag might poke through. Here's a close up of the daisy.