Cardinal Bag Pattern

This is the story of how NOT to design and write up a pattern - at least not if you want to get the pattern out for anyone to buy.
Last summer when Mom passed away I decided to design a cardinal bag in her honor. She loved red. She loved cardinals. I designed a bag with her favorite colors and included a double pocket on the inside because I'm always losing my phone and iPod.

Once I got the bag felted I stuck a cake pan in a plastic bag inside the bag to help shape it while it dried.


So far so good. I planned on putting a handle on it that I found at a local fabric shop but didn't have time before Stitches Midwest. The first day at Stitches I found a wonderful handle shop. Homestead Heirlooms has the perfect handle. It was red leather 45" with a D ring clasp. That night I sewed on the handle and the bag saw some action when I met up with the She-Knits group that night for pizza and a chat.


Also knowing the bag needed a little more detail because Mom was all about little pins and bracelets and accessories, I found Ivy leaf buttons at JoAnn. They were from Blumenthal Lansing Co. and worked out perfect.


While getting all these things ready I sent out the pattern to be tested and the tester decided to make it in winter colors. Her bag was such an inspiration I needed to make a winter version to photograph for the pattern. That's when I ran into problems.

I made the winter version and decided to felt it looser to give knitters an option and they could see what the different felting would look like. I decided it needed a bit more felting but took pictures (with a bit too much help from Chief) anyway. Then the whole process came to a halt.

The pattern was written, done, complete. ready for sale except for felting the winter bag a bit more and getting pictures. There is where it has sat for forever.

Today I got a request for the pattern and I decided to get it out there without the best pictures of the winter version.
The pattern is written well and tested. I'm not aware of any mistakes but time will tell. It's now up for sale on Ravelry and can be purchased as a PDF download for $4.00

I hope you enjoy the pattern and, please, let me know if there are any problems reading or understanding the directions.

If you are interested in purchasing - click on the BUY NOW button and you can purchase it through Pay Pal.

Welcome the Cardinal Bag - almost....

Back this summer when Mom passed away I decided I needed to design a bag that would be her. Something I could see and say - Mom would like that. So, naturally it had to be a bag with red on it. But more then just red it had to have a cardinal. I designed it, wrote it up, had it test knitted, and waited for the sun to come out. It would occasionally come out but always when I was at work or somewhere else. Today the sun has tried to come out and I gave it a try to get good pictures.

I had help.

A little too much help.

The pictures did not come out as well as I had hoped. Maybe tomorrow we'll have better sun. In the meantime, here's the bag in Summer cardinal and Winter cardinal. Both are felted and a very easy knit.

Summer is light blue with green button leaves on the branches and was knit in a way to create a 3-D effect with the cardinal while Winter is dark green with a lighter branch with snow on it and the cardinal was knit to stay flat with the bag. The summer one is felted tight and the winter one felted loosely. This way everyone can see what amount of felting they want before they throw their own bag in the washer.

The pattern will be up on Ravelry for sale by the end of the weekend - if the sun cooperates!

Ya gotta love fall and it's food!

Today is Mom's birthday. It's the first of her birthday's that I haven't been able to celebrate with her. So - I went over to spend some time with Dad. He didn't know what day it was but what was important was we spent time together.


Mom's birthday always signals my need to get busy with Christmas/winter knitting. This past week I started working on gloves and some other items that will end up as presents. There's a free pattern out there for a fun pair of gloves that uses sock yarn. Knotty. Do a search on Ravelry or - if you're not a member of Ravelry, join and then do a search!


Anyway - they take 1 skein of Socks that Rock , I'm using a couple skeins of KnitPicks Memory(no longer available). The gloves are long and have a bit of cable knot work at the wrist.




They're wonderful and easy to knit.

The cuff is nice and long and will keep things warm during the cold Minnesota winters.


The next time I make these gloves, and there WILL be a next time, I will use a yarn colorway that is closer to a single color. Something like a kettle dye that has some depth to the color but not such a variation as this yarn. The cabling just doesn't show up as much as I'd like.


Mom's birthday also means time to make comfort food. I love fall and the foods that come with it. I love apples, squash, soups and stews, fresh made warm bread and all the goodies we think of with fall. Every Halloween when I was a kid we would have breaded pork steaks, baked potatoes, squash, fresh bread, and dessert would end up being the candy we got from trick or treating. Yup - Mom's birthday-fall-Halloween - ya gotta love the food this time of year.


My cardinal bag pattern is almost ready. I'm hoping within the next week to have it available for sale. This is a felted bag pattern I created in memory of Mom. She loved red and cardinals. We used to play a game of trying to count all the cardinal stuff around the house. (but I babble) The bag has been test knit. I received some excellent feed back and I'll be refining the pattern this week.