What I've been busy with

These handbags are based on very talented Kate's pattern which you can request for at her blog. She has an excellent FAQ site as well. It was great when I had to face K11tog challenge.

For the lime version, I used 6 balls of Idéna Cotton Lux in color 570, and four skeins of On-Line Clip color 57 for the aubergine version. The latter is a heavier yarn and the handbag is bulkier and more textured. The handles are from MJ Trimming. I just had to use these faux tortoise ones.

In order to fit the handles, I reduced the number of stitches at the top by 1/3. Once the knitting was done, the dimensions of the bag were determined. I wanted the bag to be heavily textured. For that, the lining had to be smaller than the knitted fabric, particularly in height.


The width of the lining is the same as the knitted fabric.


The paper pattern piece seen above has 5/8" seam allowances at the bottom and sides. The top will be flash with the handbag opening and no allowance is added. The lining has three layers: black fabric as outer lining, heavy fusible interfacing, and cotton print as inner lining.

First, the outer lining was constructed by fusing the interfacing to the wrong side of the black fabric, sewing the bottom and two sides with right side together, turning inside out, and ironing it to shape.




The inner lining has pockets which was made with the same cotton print. For firmer pocket, the same interfacing was fused to one side only.





The finished pocket piece was sewn onto the right side of the inner lining fabric.






Sew the inner lining like the outer lining. As you can see in the photo above, the inner lining was cut on fold along the bottom.





Slip the inner lining into the outer lining as shown and sew the top edge through all three layers.









With the wrong side out, place the knitted bag under the lining. At this point, the knitted bag is much larger than the lining.





Tack the lining to the knitted bag at four corners and between corners.






Here is a close up of tucking.







Now, it is time to flip the bag right side out! The bag has the nice shape I wanted.






Hand sew the knitted facing onto the lining, attach the handles, and DONE!!

Stacy Charles - Noro Outfit

This outfit began with a skirt. Its pattern is based on #18 ZigZag Skirt from St. Charles Collezione Summer '05. Textured yarns and solid colored yarns are cleverly combined to create vertical zigzag patterns which attracted me very much.

Then, one day, I came across K1C2 Tartalette #641 at my LYS. Its blue and orange combination caught my eyes. That was it. Next, I picked up Noro Daria #12 and St. Charles Rialto #29 for textured yarns and various cotton/silk/wool blends in orange, blue, mustard yellow and chocolate brown, all solid colors but not necessarily in the same gauge range. The only concern was Noro Daria. Would a stiff cable work with other yarns? I felt so strongly about the colors being right, it was decided that I have to make it all work together.

The original garment photos are shown on the left. The skirt has a yoke with a cord threaded at the top to keep the skirt in place, and is matched with a collared tank. Several changes were made to the original pattern. I added an elastic casing to the top of the yoke and decided not to wear the skirt on the hip. The matching tank did not suit my taste and was replaced by a tank top from Katia knitting magazine from a few years ago. Casting on and off with solid colored cotton blend yarn, Noro Daria tank worked out fine. I completely ignored the recommended gauge on Noro Daria, however.

Here are the covers of the magazines used. I needed two balls each of Tartalette and Rialto, three balls of Noro Daria, and one ball each in four solid colors for the skirt. For the tank, 7 skeins of Noro Daria were needed.

I am still working on the outfit. I am planning to sew a light jacket with silk sateen in smokey blue. At the moment, I am planning to use The Sewing Workshop's Tribeca Shirt pattern.