My original plan was to make an as exact replica of this thing as I could, however I had no intentions of knitting it 7 sts/cm with a wool/silk blend. It is, after all a school project and not something I'd want to splurge on.
So a few weeks ago, I cast on for the project. It took me an hour and a half to cast on and knit one row. Ugh. Why, you ask? Because there were 336 PER ROW. Each shield motif (2 shields and 2 decorative leafy things in between) was 84 sts, and there were 2 motifs on each side. So I worked on like this, thinking that this was taking an extraordinary amount of time. Really, it was. It was taking me between 15 and 25 minutes PER ROW. I decided to calculate out how much time I was going to need to spend with the bag to get it finished in 6 weeks. 2 hours a day, or 6 rows. Longer for the fair-isle parts. No way. There was no way I'd be able to knit all that and be able to keep up with my reading/other school work.
So I contacted the teacher and he said making it smaller was fine, since it was more about the 'process' than the product. He want the stitches to be the same? Which I thought was interesting. I could bring in pretty much anything I've made and have the stitches be the same, well anything that was made in the round. This bag was made before they figured out how to purl and so it was knit in the round. This is where steeking was important, if they wanted something to be flat they'd knit it in the round and then steek it, otherwise it would be all garter stitch.
Anyhow after figuring that out I put the project in time out for a while (Like 2 weeks..? erg). And last Thursday I ripped and cast on again. I'm about half way through the bag, now. But I've been working on it instead of doing some of my other homework (Hey, it's school work, right?).
The other day it was sunny and so I was able to take pictures:
I'm almost half way through the next set of sheild motifs. They're red and blue like the arrows on the bottom of the bag. I'm planning on finishing it in the next 2 weeks, tassels and all. I've been pretty monogamous to the bag since it's on a deadline, which means it's progressing nicely.
Stay tuned. ;-)
6 comments:
It's looking great! It definitely sounds like it was a good idea to scale it down a little. I can imagine 336 stitches in each row taking forever to finish!
That does look great!! 336 stitches per row is why I don't do many shawls!
Oh jeez I would have had to cast on about a zillion times!!
It looks really great:)
wow! it looks fabulous. what an interesting project.
Thanks for the well wishes!
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