Intarsia bag finished

Here is it!! The intarsia bag (or tote as I've been calling it) is finally finished. It started out with good intentions of closely following the pattern. But, I only managed to get through a quarter of it before I found it just too fiddly. So off I went in my own direction........and above is the end result. The bag is approximately 9" high (excluding the handles), 10" or so wide, and about 2" deep. It is made from hand-spun, hand-dyed polypay x yarn. Yes, it does tend to flare out a bit at the top. Don't quite understand that, but it does give the bag charm. A piece of acid-free foam core board was used in the bottom of the bag to give it a nice solid bottom (reason it can stand on its own). The bag is lined with the same fabric that is used for the handles and has a velcro closure. I think it will make a wonderful little spindle bag. It's just the right size for carrying a spindle with a bit of fiber. Will I tackle intarsia knitting again?? Probably, but not anytime soon. This was a wonderful learning experience though.

Another first for me.....fair isle knitting. I've always wanted to try my hand at fair isle knitting, but have found it to be so incredibly intimidating. I've got books on it (all of which I've read), plenty of patterns to choose from....even have yarn set aside for a couple of fair isle projects. It took a simple pattern offered by the Philosopher's Wool website to give me the push I needed to actually give it a try. Here is the end result. I was able to knit this little bag up in a few hours using the two-handed method of stranding. I found it incredibly easy to do once I got going. The yarn I used isn't hand-spun. It's yarn I had purchased from Knitpicks quite some time ago (most likely for a project that will never get made). I was real pleased to see that the little bag lay nice and flat after I had finished knitting. This means that I got the tension right on my stranding. Yea!! Now to get a handle made for it and then get it felted. Then it's off to tackle an even larger fair isle project.