KnitWerk

This was a fun and challenging project. You’ve probably heard about Backtack, a exchange for crafty types. You send fabric to someone anonymously, who then makes things to hold notions for another anonymous blogger using the fabric they received. Since you’re basing your project on fabric that someone else sent you, there’s a huge loss of control involved that had me pretty stymied in the beginning. I got a late start, and then ran into a number of hurdles once I finally created a plan.

The blogger sending me fabric asked me what my pal would like, and after emailing the future recipient a few times and checking out her blog, I said, “send color.” I got a very fun package in the mail that included (very) colorful fabric, some lovely candles and lots of fun notions:

And then I pondered the situation. Happily, my pal is one of those types that posts nearly every day (unlike, ahem, bloggers like me). She posts a lot of photos, so I got a better sense of her taste. Except for type, I noticed that she never used black, and she loves stripes.

Last winter I started collecting wool sweaters from the thrift store. A search through my stash of fabric and wool put the whole thing together: I would make a knit bag out of a wool sweater (I made another one earlier; more on that later), focus on the bright solid fabrics, and pull the whole thing together with a happy stripe. I hope this suits her taste:

It’s a small project bag for socks or a hat, a large knit bag, a needle roll and a zippered pouch. Detail shots follow; y’all might want to just stop reading here, unless you’re interested.

This monogram is the detail on the whole project that took the longest. My pal and I share a love of letterforms, it seems. She likes to use her initials, so it was a detail I wouldn’t give up. Luckily, I had the sleeves to use for my experiments. Precision gave me trouble, even though I designed it with very simple letterforms. Transferring a design onto fabric caused problems, as well. I tried a bunch of stuff:

• Needle felting: While the sweater felted well, needle felting on the resulting knit felt was too difficult for the detail I wanted.
• Needle punch: The project is based on clean, bold color with crisp edges. I saw a needle punch kit in our local quilt shop, and was interested right away. Haven’t done it since I was a kid, and I liked the idea of raised letters and the texture. Ha! Wasted a bunch of time with this one; experimented with three different interfacings against the felted sweater fabric, and none worked well. Finally, I decided to work with regular fabric and applique it on the bag. This worked, but it didn’t have the look that I wanted. Again, the edges weren’t crisp enough. (I don’t have a picture. If anyone’s interested, let me know)
• Embroidery with pearl cotton: I liked the pearl cotton in the circles, but it was too thick for the typographic details.
• The solution: satin stitch embroidery with 3 strands of floss. Using fewer strands of classic embroidery floss did the trick in the blue and the white text areas. I made an applique (couldn’t get the design on the dark felt otherwise), and stuffed it before stitching it on.

By the time I was done with all this, Husband suggests, “Change your name! Keep it!”

A closer look:

The bag is lined, with pockets on one side and a zippered pouch on the other:

Obviously, someone enjoyed her new bias tape maker:

The small bag was a last-minute decision. She told me that she does small projects. The knitting bag I made earlier with the felted sweater method turned out a lot smaller. I still had a few scraps of lime green, so I created something she can use for small things. It’s reversible; on the other side, it’s predominantly green, with stripes on the bottom.

I loved this project. I can see a lot more little fabric bags and zippered pouches in my future—they’re so quick and easy! The knit bags from thrift store sweaters are a much bigger project, but I’ve got several more in the wings in various stages of completion. You’ll be seeing more of those from me.