Warning: Wear Sunglasses

I warned you these were some bright pictures.

My whole life is bags right now. Yeah, the felted ones, too. But mostly the ones under my eyes. I've had one decent night's sleep out of the last 5. I've been up since 2:30am. As the Bean would say, that is not a good idea.

The bag on the table is my own design - Lamb's Pride Worsted doubled. Most of 4 skeins.

The bag handing off of the chair is the Canteen Bag from the Fall 2005 Interweave Knits. Being constitutionally unable to knit a pattern as written, I messed around and knit it in Cascade 220 doubled on 13US needles.

I added a bit of Crystal Palace Squiggle to the trin on the flap.




I ran out of the green Cascade after the trim on the flap and had just enough to do the first green section on the handle. The green at the top is leftover Lamb's Pride. I originally planned to just knit the whole handle in the Lamb's Pride but although it is really close, it's not an exact match so I decided the way I did it you couldn't really tell the difference between the two. As obnoxious as this bag is, I'll definitely use it because I find it hilarious.

I'll knit the Canteen Bag again. It's a fast and fun pattern. The next one is planned in the handpainted Woolpak 8ply I bought in Fredericksburg in June. I'll double that. The trim will be black Lopi (not doubled). The handpainted yarn should turn out somewhat heathered. Paired with the black, it will make a nice fall bag in a more sophisticated color palate.


Pattern notes on the canteen bag: The pattern tells you to pick up 96 stitches around the flap for the flap trim. This will produce a ruffled effect on your trim. It's only a bit noticeable in the IK picture. Granted, my double yarn probably exacerbated this effect, but I'll probably pick up fewer stitches on the next go 'round. While I like it on this bag, I'm not sure I want it ruffled on a plain bag.

The second note is that it's a good idea to match up the front and the back of the bag and use removable stitch markers or safety pins or something to hold the front and the back even while you knit the side trim around the bag. I ended up getting way ahead of myself on one side of the bag and having to frog part of the side trim because I didn't notice until I was "finished".