The Lindy hopper pattern I’ve used on so many of my knitted items is based on a photo taken many years ago of Jason & Virginie. It therefore seemed fitting that I should make something for Virginie. The original plan was a wine cozy, because, well, she’s French, she must drink wine. When she told me she didn’t, I had to come up with a new idea. Kristin suggested it, and I really liked this pattern. I just needed it bigger than ballet shoe size, so I cast on more to get it 12” by 14 1/2”.

I was on a huge time crunch to get this done before visiting SF and dancing with Virginie. In spite of this, I got to do a bunch of new things. This was the first time I knit in the round without needing to do magic loop. So. much. fun. I want to find a way to knit everything like this now. I’m usually a very tight knitter, but I think the number of stitches for my 24” circulars forced me to be very loose with it. That was also so much easier. I learned how to pick up the cast on stitches, and I learned the kitchener’s stitch, which, once I figured out how to keep the yarn from getting tangled around the needles in the wrong ways, was actually a lot more fun for me than the mattress stitch (I hate mattress stitching).

Anyway, this turned out really well (shhh, the seaming was horrible since I barely had time to do it before the dance), but probably not noticeable without close inspection.

Pictures: Bottom to top
1) Before I sewed a flap over the draw strings
2) The open bag
3) The bottom (kitchener’s stitched)
4) The top with a flap sewed over the draw strings
5) The closed bag
6) On display with Virginie