Tag Archives: sws

Damask Bag in SWS – 4

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Well, you probably remember me going on and on (and on) about this fair isle messenger bag. Happy to say that it is DONE and you won’t have to hear anymore about it after today. I finally finished the knitting after abandoning that double knitted strap that wasn’t going to get knitted in my lifetime.

The most recent post on the bag is HERE, and it has links to the earlier posts. Unfortunately, the nifty black I-cord I was showing you in that picture is no more. After finishing the strap, I decided that all of the I-cord had to be in the variegated violet — so I ripped out the black I-cord. I’m not a huge fan of knitting I-cord, so it nearly made me weep to tear out three feet of it. BUT it looks much better with the I-cord all the same colour.

Here it is, ready to be felted:Kauni Damask Understated Bag by Karen Stelzer knit in Patons SWS by Deborah Cooke

It’s about 24″ wide and 22″ deep in its unfelted state. My hope was for a bag more like 18″ wide and 13″ deep. I’ve felted a lot of SWS and that seemed about reasonable to expect in terms of shrinkage. I was a bit worried about it being so humungous – would this be the felting project that finally finished off my trusty (ferocious) top-loading washing machine?

Nope. But it didn’t felt the way I expected. Felting is, by nature, somewhat unpredictable, at least the way I do it. Putting the piece into a pillowcase then chucking it into the washing machine and coming back in half an hour leaves lots of opportunity for variation. I just don’t have it in me to stand guard over a felting piece though, pulling it out of the machine at regular intervals, much less to felt by hand in the tub with a plunger. I have made my peace with unpredictability.

Sometimes. On the first ride through the washer, the bag felted quite a bit. The flap and strap hardly felted at all. The design was starting to lose definition on the bag, but the bag was still pretty big. I had to leave it on the top of the washing machine and visit it regularly – poke it, prod it – to come up with a plan. Mostly I had to accept that I was past the point of no return – it was useless as it was; there was no going back; I might as well risk another run through the washer.

Before putting it back into the pillowcase, though, I tried to figure out how to make the strap and flap felt more than the bag on this run. The front of the bag had also felted more than the back on the first pass. So, I rolled up the bag and tied it into a big roll, with the back of it on the outside, much the way a butcher ties up a roast. It seemed that less exposure to hot water and less agitation could make the bag felt less. (Remember that I make stuff up for a living.) The flap and strap were free to move around inside the pillowcase. Back into the machine it went.

This worked pretty well. I made progress. But now, I have to get down to regional felting. Ugh. This is the handwork, in the sink, rubber gloves and hot water, just to get the flap and the strap to felt consistently with the rest. I have doubts. For the moment, I have to let it sit, maybe visit it, poke it and prod it once in a while. It’s still huge – about 18″ by 18″, but mostly I’m not loving it as much as I did (although this photo might change my mind.) Here it is:Kauni Damask Understated Bag by Karen Stelzer knit in Patons SWS by Deborah Cooke

What do you think?

Damask Bag in SWS – 3

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So, I’m still knitting on this ginormous bag, and still loving it to bits. Let’s see – I started to tell you about it HERE, then continued the story HERE. This is the third installment of the story!

I’ve finished one side of the bag, in the same checkerboard pattern as the base. Here’s what it looks like now:Kauni Damask Understated Bag by Karen Stelzer knit in Patons SWS by Deborah CookeSo, the bottom of the bag is at the bottom of the photo here, folded behind the front and back. The top that will remain open is at the top, and the flap off to the top right. To knit the side, I picked up the stitches across the bottom, then picked up stitches all along the edge of the front and the back. Those I left on spare needles. As I knit the side, I joined it to the front and back by working two stitches together at the end of every row. Once I got up to the top, I worked applied I-cord all the way down the join, across the bottom and up the other side – that makes that nice thick black line. Right now, the live stitches at the top of the side are on that green piece of sock wool.

I’ve flipped it over since taking this picture and am repeating this exercise on the other side of the bag. Once that’s done, I’ll just need to knit the handle. I think I’m going to try double knitting on that, so the checkerboard pattern will be on both sides. I’ll knit from one end, make the strap, then graft it to the other side of the bag once I guess that it’s long enough.

After that, there’s just the felting to be done! I can’t wait to see this bag felted and finished.

What do you think of it so far?

Damask Bag in SWS – 2

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I told you a few weeks ago about a fair isle bag I had started to knit and intended to felt.

Well, here’s an update. (I’m going on about this bag because I really really really like it, so you get to hear about it!)

I’ve finished the knitting of the bag itself and here’s a picture of it flat:Kauni Damask Understated Bag by Karen Stelzer knit in Patons SWS by Deborah Cooke

The edges really want to curl, and it’s not entirely straight, but you get the idea. I had to hold the camera over my head to get the shot – it’s that big – so the end of the button loop didn’t make it into the image. Oh well! It is about 66 inches long and roughly 22 inches wide – of course, it will shrink a lot when I felt it.

I changed direction twice with my knitting to get the flowers to all be knitted the same way. The first part I knit actually ended up in the middle – it’s the section with the black flowers with the coloured background: I knit from the black line which is just below the checkerboard in this picture down to the pink line. This will be the back of the bag.

When that was done, I picked up stitches at the bottom (a provisional cast on would have been an excellent plan) and knit in the other direction: I knit the checkerboard for the bottom of the bag, then the panel with the coloured flowers on the black background, casting off at the end. This will be the front of the bag.

I used the same technique as in my Stripey Noro Messenger bag and knit two rows in reverse stockinette where the bag will fold.

Then I knit the flap, starting at the point. I tried to replicate the curve of the original, even though my gauge was completely different and I was knitting in the other direction. It’s not too far off. I knit one flower motif, then 40 more rows of plain black. When that was done, I knit that pink line and left the stitches on the needle. I knit pinky-purple I-cord around the flap, then grafted the flap to the top of the first panel I’d knit. The bag will open at the top and the flap will hang over the front of the bag.

And presto – all the flowers are knit in the same direction AND they will all be right side up when the sides are done. I really like how the shading worked out for the single flower on the flap – the brown at the bottom looks like roots in the soil, then yellow- greeny bits for the leaves and pink/purple for the flowers. A happy accident there.

Since this photo was taken, I’ve continued with the sides. I’m knitting them the same way as my Stripey Noro Messenger bag too – first I picked up stitches across the bottom of the bag (on either side of the checkerboard), and now I’m knitting up the sides of the bag, joining to the front and the back as I go. When I get to the opening and flap at the top of the bag, I’ll knit the handle.

Getting there!

What do you think?

Damask Bag in SWS – 1

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I have a tendency, it seems, to make things more complicated than they need to be.

In fact, I really enjoy when a project of any kind evolves into a much more complicated project than I’d originally anticipated. This is true of books and it’s true of knitting projects. In a way, a project that becomes a complicated beast is a good thing – it means, to me, that the project has taken on a life of its own, and demands its own shape. And when it does that independent of how such a move impacts my own scheduling and other demands, I know it’s not just got a life of its own – it’s got a bit of attitude. I like that a lot.

So, this month, I have been wrestling with a book manuscript that ran off and did that, as well as a knitting project that has run off and done that. We’ll talk about the knitting project today. This was supposed to be straightforward.

Uh huh. Nothing worth doing is ever straightforward, and this bag has proven to be very much worth the doing.

Here’s the basic idea. There is a fair isle pattern which is extremely popular in the land o’ knitters, and is particularly gorgeous in our old fave Kauni Effektgarn. It’s become known as Damask.

Here’s the sweater and quite possibly the first reference to it. (The stripey bits in the middle are for steeks – she would later cut open the front to make a cardigan.)

As much as I like this sweater, I didn’t want to make a cardi like this. I have other plans for my Kauni.

But then, I saw this pattern, for a tote bag, using the same fair isle pattern. It’s called Kauni Damask Understated Bag. (Not sure if you can see this without being on Ravelry, but it’s free to create an account. Go for it.) Since I noticed in the notes that some people were unhappy with the resolution of the design once the bag was felted, I decided to use thicker yarn. Venturing into the almost-endless wealth of the stash, I discovered a hoard of Patons SWS, which is excellent for felting. I decided to use one variegated colourway with black.

Of course, I didn’t actually have enough of either colourway in my stash, so had to hunt down more. This was my first complication. Both are discontinued, but I found the yarn with some online searching. Getting it only required a trek through the snow on a Friday to a LYS which isn’t particularly local. No worries. I had the materials.

Time for the second complication. This bag is worked in the round. You knit the rectangle for the bottom of the bag, then pick up stitches on all four sides and knit up. This works because the Kauni has very long colour gradations. SWS does not. Sooooo, I decided to knit the front of the bag, then knit the back. This would allow the SWS to do better stripey things.

I cast on. As I knit the front, the third complication came to me. I realized that the flower would have to be right side up on both sides of the bag. I hadn’t started at one edge – I’d started at the bottom and I would have to start the other side from the bottom as well.

Okay. After I knit the front, I put all my stitches on waste yarn because I’m not sure yet about the flap. I then picked up stitches for the bottom of the bag on the cast-on edge. (At this point, I realized that a provisional cast-on would have been an excellent idea, but no, I hadn’t done that. This counts as a consideration, not a complication. It’s not that hard to pick up from a cast on edge and since the bag is going to be felted, any extra tension there isn’t an issue.) I knit the bottom, then started up the other side, reversing the colour usage. Just because.

It’s a good thing I really like how it’s coming out. Here’s how it looks, on the needles and unfelted.Kauni Damask Understated Bag by Karen Stelzer knit in Patons SWS by Deborah Cooke

Time for another complication? It is! I had been thinking of putting a flower on the bag flap, instead of leaving it plain as in the pattern. That’s why I left those stitches on waste yarn – I was pretty sure I wanted the first colour combo on the back, and I figured I’d just grab those stitches and knit the flap. As I knit the other side, though, I realized that the flower on the flap would also have to be knit right side up. There’s our complication. Instead of carrying on from the back to knit down the flap to the point, I’ll have to cast on the point of the flap and knit UP, then graft the flap to the back of the bag.

I haven’t even thought about the handles yet. There’s got to be another complication there, just lurking…

Do you ever start projects that morph into more than you expected? Do you like that challenge or not?