Sunday, January 27, 2008

Celtic Tote - My First FO of 2008

After some knitting, cabling, embroidery and a little felting later, here she is....

Celtic Tote

This really was a great project. It was just the right amount of cabling and the carts where so easy to read. The finishing was entertaining. And the felting simple. I chose to knit the body of the bag in about 2 1/2 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted in Oregano. I love this green. It is simultaneously dark and yet has a great way of brightening up in natural light (as you can tell from the above photo).

Celtic Tote - button close up

You can also see that in the end, I opted for a bright yellow as my accent color. When I decided to go lighter with the accent color, I still had a tone-on-tone thing going in my head (hence the initial kiwi green choice), so it took a while to really be comfortable with the yellow. Once I knew the green on green wasn't doing it for me, I gravitated towards a rusty orange that ended up just making the bag look dirty. The yellow brings a whole new feel to the bag and one I certainly never planned when I started this project. But, boy am I happy with it! So, B gets another tally point next to his name for coming up with such a great alternative.

When I started the embroidery process, the plain backstitch was fairly subtle. I knew when I decided to change up my color choice that I wanted the accent color to be very visible, so I did a modified backstitch where I overlapped the stitches a bit. It ended up making the embroidery look like a little rope outlining the cable. Because of this change, I probably used more of my accent color that what you would normally use, about 1/2 a skein of the Wild Mustard Lamb's Pride Worsted.

Celtic Tote - inside lining

I also added a fabric lining so that I could use this as a regular purse. My lining came from some leftover Kaffe Fassett fabric in my stash that had exactly the same green as the yarn. I also made some pockets in the front and back of the lining so that things like my keys and phone would be easy to find in a hurry.

The only other thing I did differently was use a piece of flexible cutting board for the bottom instead of the plastic mesh. I have to give Cora the credit for this idea, which was perfect because I happened to have a seldom used flexible cutting board exactly the right length.

Celtic Tote - in use

Given all the stash components of this bag (main yarn, fabric lining and base), the project ended up costing about $8.50 for the new hank of yellow Lamb's Pride and the button. Not a bad deal for a new bag!

19 comments:

Theresa said...

That came out great - just perfect!

LizKnits said...

Your bag is fabulous! Mine's about a third of the way done and seeing yours motivates me to get it back out of the UFO pile.

Jennifer said...

Oh my gosh, I love it! The yellow sets it off perfectly, and the lining is so cute!

margene said...

Wow! It's truly fabulous!

jillian said...

That's perfect! Love the color combination. It looks extra sturdy too, really useable. How fabulous that you had all that in the stash!

Anonymous said...

Yay! You know me and big ol' green bags...I wholeheartedly approve! :)

Anonymous said...

It came out awesome and I love the yellow! Too bad I wasn't home when you went looking for it. I have a half skein of that color left over from an LSU scarf. I guess it'll stay in the stash for the moment.

Anonymous said...

Looks fabulous!! Love the lining and the yellow.

Anonymous said...

tis lovely!

mle said...

wow, that came out fantastic!! the green is absolutely perfect too and with the yellow...wow!

Julia (MindofWinter) said...

What a great FO to kick off 2008! I bet Nonnahs is salivating at all that green!

Madge said...

Your tote turned out great! Love the choice of yellow...and the green/yellow is a very Celtic color combo.

Don't know if you took pre-felting/post-felting measurements, but if you did...I'm wondering if you would share them, please? (we were just discussing this tote in knitting group, and one of our members got gauge, but her bag looks way smaller than yours does!)

Nasus said...

OMG, it came out so well!

mary said...

Really incredible job! Love how the yellow makes the green pop out. And the fabric inside is a special treat.

~RaenWa~ said...

That is a great tote I love it especially the embroidery I love the colors you used to great job

Anonymous said...

It looks wonderful! Very nice job. I love the bright yellow peeking out from behind the cables. It's great!
www.yarnintercept.com

Anonymous said...

When I first saw the close-ups, I wasn't too sure about the yellow, but when I see the whole bag, being worn, it looks really good. It gives it a very Celtic look to me. Looks classy and original all at once.

Octopus Knits said...

It looks great! It's University of Oregon colors -- I'll have to show it to my Eugene, Oregon, relatives : )

Zaz said...

this is very pretty. the getaway satchel is such a "big" project!!! but i followed your link and in the end you get a beauty...
i knit the target mits and the sideways open cardigan from yarn i bought from the hills in bretagne, france. you can check them at my blog here:
http://zazeway.blogspot.com/2008/02/knitting-nature-interpretations.html#links
i hope you like them.