CO 3/5/2014. Looking for a simple and mindless project that I can knit while on conference calls or the bus. Holding the handpsun BFL (which is worsted weight) double. Using US 11s and getting a gauge of right around 3 sts per inch.

I may not have quite enough yarn, but I’ve got some handspun Rambouillet in a tweedy brown that would go nicely with the purple if I need to use it.

I read that others have found the opening to make the handles too large, so when it came to bind off those sts and then cast them back on on the next row, I did that for 16 sts on a side instead of 20.

5/23/2014: I put this project aside for two months while knitting a baby blanket. Picked it up again and almost immediately was at 16 inches and ready for the decreases. This also happened to be right when I ran out of yarn, so I did the bottom in that handspun brown yarn. But then ripped it out.

Given the pictures on the pattern, I thought there would be decreases to narrow the bag before knitting the bottom. However, when you hit the decreases, you are starting the mitered bottom of the bag, and this doesn’t take a ton of yardage.

After knitting the bottom in the brown yarn, I thought the different color on just the bottom didn’t look good, and decided I wouldn’t mind a shorter bag to keep it all in one color. I did some calculations to figure out how many stitches it took me to knit the bottom, ripped the body back 7 rows (which turned out to be too many), re-knit the bottom. Looks great and I’m ready to felt!

Felted 6/21/2014 with one short run through the washing machine on hot/regular with a pair of jeans. Love it! I expect I’ll be making many more of these.