One Month Ago

I'm not really a purse kind of person, I don't normally carry one if possible. However I have fallen in love with this brea bag. I wanted to make a purse for a good friend of mine for her birthday. I started out just making a pattern as I go along but it was going to be fairly boring. I only had 4 days to finish so I had picked out some cotton in my stash and held it double and used size 9 needles. I started with just a rectangle bottom and picked up stitches all the way around and got up a good 3" (using a purl row for the corners) My thought was that I could find a sideways cable to finish off the top and add a strap. So I went to raverly and try my luck. Turns out I was not able to find any sideways cable but I did find the brea.

One look at the bag and I wanted to make it. It is gorgeous. My thought was I could maybe make it for next year or Christmas but I got to reading the pattern. Each side only has 29 rows and you only start with 128 stitches. That seamed more than reasonable in my time frame. Then I read what materials you need, yarn held double and size 9 needles. The exact things I had with me. And my yarn even made gauge (or at least close) I measured 14 stitches to 4" in stockinette not seed stitch but still pretty close. I made my mind up right then and there to rip out my lousy excuse of a purse and cast on this puppy.

The first bag took me only 2 days to finish (true one of the days was over the entire span of a baseball game on top of my train ride). I made only two modifications to the first bag (not pictured here, it was pink if you where following along) I did not make three parts to have to sew together. The whole time knitting the first side I was thinking about how to not have to sew the thing (when I wasn't thinking how much I loved this bad) My brilliant idea was to instead of knitting the bottom long part width wise like in the pattern but length wise. I would then instead of casting off this bottom section continue on to the second side and only have one seam to sew. I almost went with this theory when I dawned on me, I didn't have to cast on at all, just needed to pick up stitches along the bottom edge of the first side. This eliminated all need of sewing. That is when I married the bag, it was far beyond love at this point.

The other modification was simple, I used a braid cord as a strap. Of course I needed to make the bag again. My mother-in-laws birthday was coming up and this sounded perfect. This time I only had 6 oz of cotton in the blue and I used about 8-9 oz of cotton on the first bag. I knew I was going to run out and I wanted to use up stash. Also, I though the bag was a bit big (probably not for a normal person but when I do use a purse it is the smallest one I can get away with) so to make this smaller I skipped the first 6 rows and cast on for row 7. I just had enough yarn for both the bag and strap. I used an old found button, key rings for the hardware. I made a lining for this one too. It finishes off the bag quite nicely.

I have now have to make a bag for me. To bad I used up all my cotton that was 6 oz of the same color. Since the pattern isn't written for cotton I might try some other type of fiber but I really like how sturdy the cotton turns out. Maybe I will just go and buy one 3 oz skein.