Finished a New Celtic Tote!

Over the Christmas break my brother's fiancee admired the Celtic Tote bag I'd made. I asked if she'd like me to make her one and she said she'd love that, her only requirement was no brown.
Okay, with those provisos in place, I embarked on the project!
In the end, wasn't as straight forward as I'd hoped. The yarn I bought didn't come in very interesting colour ranges and I couldn't find a contrast yarn that I really liked. So I had to do some thinking.

I ended up using the blue and knitting the first side. Wasn't coming out as big as the first one but didn't worry about that too much. My big problem was trying to come up with a contrast colour I liked because I wanted to make one of the cables a feature, doing it entirely in the contrast colour.

In the end I pulled something out of my stash. I had some spun and dyed corriedale wool that would felt nicely and I thought the colours were lively enough to be eyecatching.

So, when I began the second side, they became the feature cable!

But I was still really unhappy with the colour and finally decided the only thing would be to dye the whole thing! Decided on red since it really made the contrast yarn pop but my first attempt wasn't very successful because I didn't have a whole packet. It came out a sort of wishy-washy purply-colour.

So I decided to let it dry, press the pieces and sew them all together and dye them like that since I had to wait until I could buy more dye! But the bag did look lovely all sewn together.

Finally I got the dye and once that was done I threw it into the washing machine and felted the daylights out of it! I knew it was going to come out much smaller than the first one but I was a little concerned with just how small it came out.

But still a very usable size, much more like a handbag. So I got the lining material I'd bought (which now the bag had been dyed went with it much better than it had before!) sewed it all up, attached the button and Viola! A very beautiful little Celtic Tote!

I'm very happy with the end result, especially the colour! The feature cable was horribly fiddly to knit and although I'll never do it again! I think it really makes the bag its own individual and extra special. Now all I have to do is get it to recipient. That could take a while too :)
Hope you like this. Happy Knitting :)

Okay, I have actually been busy...

I have just been a little preoccupied. I have actually finished stuff.
My Auty Dot's cardigan for one.
I wish it had been lighter so she could get some wear out of it now but hopefully it'll serve for this autumn and winter. It looks and feels lovely :)

Christmas and new years were interesting. Dear Daughter and her Beloved were down from Canberra for a month off so we saw quite a bit of her. Saw him on Christmas day and in passing as I picked Madam up and dropped her back. He exemplified his status as one of the rudest persons of my aquaintance when he took a slogan I'd found, liked and put on facebook...

...and he thought it would be funny to alter it to show me the errors of my delusional beliefs

Thank you so much :(
Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter how nice you are to someone they still find it entertaining to slap you in the face and when you complain point out that you've taken it totally the wrong way. And if you get upset tell you that you're not behaving in a very christian manner.
But I digress....
While she was down Madam saw a hat I'd knitted and asked if I could knit her one. Which of course I agreed to immediately :) My hat was done with some very old acrylic that I love the colour of.

Madam decided she wanted hers in a wool I'd dyed in a range of blues and strawberry reds. It looks lovely but it's hardly the sort of thing you'd wear for more than a minute in the middle of an Australian summer! And God help her if she puts it in the wash on a normal cycle. It'd probably shrink to the size of a coin purse! But it does look sweet. Had to post it to her since it wasn't quite ready.

So Daughter and the Athiest she lives with have returned to Canberra and Hubbie has been in New Zealand for 10 days attending a family reunion . I hope he's been having fun because he jolly well needs to! He'll be home tomorrow with Eldest Boy so that'll be nice...once I've tidied the house up a bit :)
I'm trying to get a project off my queue, the Blush Vest but the first attempt ended up WAY too big. The yarn I'm using has tencel in it and has very little memory to speak of. I like the drapiness of it but I'm a little worried that it might hamper this vest actually working as it should. But we'll see.
I've also started another Celtic Tote since my brother's Fiancee admired mine and I'd love to do something nice for her. I keep getting sidetracked with the vest since with that I can read and mindlessly knit whereas the tote requires concentration to follow the chart.
So there you have it. I certainly have not been idle although I probably haven't used my time as well as I should but I've had fun. And in the end that's what I'm most interested in!
Happy Knitting :)