#2 son has a girlfriend. This is the first girl he has acknowledged as a girlfriend, the first one he has told us about.
He has asked me to make her a chalk bag for her birthday and I am enjoying the project.
Frankly, I’d have chosen girlier colors. Her favorite color, though, is forest green, and #1 son thought that dark blue would be good with that. “And yellow?” I asked. He disapproved.
So I’m going with these sober colors, and an entrelac pattern. I’ve owned entrelac sweaters, but I’ve never knitted entrelac. I looked at a tutorial online and knitted up a ring of triangles.
Next, you knit a rectangle along the side of each triangle.
Then you add a rectangle off the side of each of those rectangles. You continue in this way, with alternate rounds of left-leaning and right-leaning rectangles.
The result is a basket weave-effect fabric.
So I’m having a Netflix binge and knitting this up for the GF.
Once it was big enough, I cobbled together a flat bottom for the bag. I feel like this will be more interesting, since I’m felting it. I just picked up stitches along the straight edges between the stitches of the final rectangles, and then decreased regularly to a point.
Then I picked up stitches along the straight cast-on edge at the top.
At this point, it seems as though it would make a very pretty, cozy hat.
I knitted a couple of inches for the drawstring channel.
At this point, I squirted some soap onto it, tied it up in a pillowcase, and washed it in hot water.
I don’t felt often enough to be able to predict what will happen when I do. There’s always a good deal of suspense. In this case, the felting destroyed the 3-D woven effect and created a sturdy checkerboard instead.
I lined it sketchily with a super-bright scuba knit.
Then I sewed a channel for the drawstrings and chained said strings. I think I would like to replace those drawstrings with leather for sturdiness.
I like the look, though.