As part of my 2011 drive to extend my knitting skills, on April 17th I attended a course called Colourful Stitches at Purl & Jane in Skipton, a delightful new knitting shop about 40 minutes drive from my home.
The course covered intarsia, slip stitch technique (or to how cheat at Fair Isle as our teacher, Jane, put it) and Fair Isle proper. I got into trouble during the intarsia session for wanting to use my knitting bobbins rather than wind my own small skeins of yarn to use for each section of the piece. I also discovered that I have, for almost a year, I've been winding my yarn the wrong way round my needle for knit stitch. You would have think I'd have noticed, but no. Doh!
At the end of the 6 hour session, I had a sampler of each technique and slight cramp from too much knitting. The course was excellent value at £45, including a lunch at a lovely local cafe plus drinks and biscuits. I would definitely recommend both the course and the shop if you're passing Yorkshire.
After the course, I was looking round Jane's shop to find something to make with my new-found skills. I was delighted to discover that Jane of the shop was actually Jane Ellison, who designs for, amongst others, Mirasol. I duly purchased Jane's Mirasol Accessories Collection pattern book and bought the yarn for the Mollymawk bag (and for a couple of other things, but they're still in my backlog).
The bag is made with three shades of K'acha yarn on 4mm needles. The striped pattern is done using the slip stitch technique and the cute lamas are knitted using Fair Isle proper. I hope the reverse of my knitting doesn't look too messy:
Once I had knitted the main part of the bag, I decided to do the making up so it wouldn't be too overwhelming at the end. For the first time ever, I blocked my knitting as it was curling up quite a lot. I pinned the piece to my ironing board, sprayed it with water and left it to dry.
I thought my button hole was dodgy so I actually sewed it up around my fancy button (a czech glass one from The Bead Store). I think the flap is fine without a functioning fastener as the button is fairly heavy but I can add a press stud later if need be.
I lined the bag with a cotton print before I sewed it up. Lining knitting a pain because of the stretch. I slip stitched the lining to the wrong side of the knitting by hand but it's still not very neat. I mattress stitched the sides of the bag together, although one side is higher than the other if you look carefully.
Finally, I moved onto the strap, which continued in the striped pattern, and it seemed to take forever. My bag turned out a little smaller than the pattern said (perhaps my tension was tighter on the Fair Isle bit), so I got to shorten the strap a little, but it seemed to grow very slowly.
Eventually I got there and needed to sew in some ribbon to stop the strap from stretching. I have to confess, dear reader, that I sewed the ribbon to the wrong side of the strap using my sewing machine. It was about 20 times quicker than doing it by hand and the machine stitching hardly shows at all on the right side of the knitting.
Finally, I back-stitched the strap together, turned it the right way round (easier said than done) and sewed it to the bag.
This is my new hardest-ever project and, despite its many imperfections, I'm rather pleased with it. I'm also doing my knit stitches correctly the right way round now...
Melx
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