International Tote Exchange, finished

My swap partner for the ITE received her purse and I'm so glad that she sounded pleased. I was really worried. I combined 3 types of yarns and I didn't do a test swatch to see how they would felt together. Bad knitter! I so enjoy plunging in with designing and I've not been disciplined enough to write down patterns either. This behavior often gets me into problems that I could have perhaps avoided had I been more methodical when I started out. Why don't I follow my own advice? Well, sometimes being too methodical inhibits my ability to be wreckless creative. I have knitting ADD remember? Making a test swatch when a pattern doesn't need a gauge swatch is delayed gratification to me.

So for my bag, I took most of my time deciding on color, texture and embellishments - not process. I paid for this in the end because the Noro at the top of the bag refused to felt while the Cascade in the body of the bag rapidly felted, ugh.

I ended up making a major design adjustment. I turned the partially felted top into a gathered element and I put a tassled and embellished drawstring woven into it. The body of the bag is nice and firm and stands up on its own. What do you think?



My reading list book swap

Over on swap-bot.com I joined a neat swap where you send to two partners a list of your top ten books! It's an international swap so I got a great list from someone in the states and someone from Portugal. I played around with some paper crafts and made my list out of pictures. I included a typed list tucked into an envelope pocket that I made in the back. See any books you've read?