About six months ago, I realized I could use a new travel bag—you know, something to bring on a flight or the occasional overnight trip—but I wanted to knit one for myself rather than buy one. So once again I visited Ravelry.com (love that site!) and I stumbled upon the Ravenna Satchel by Marta McCall. I swear the Halleluiah Chorus started playing (or maybe that was just the Christmas music in the background at the time), for even though it would take another several weeks before I purchased the pattern, I pretty much knew that was the bag I wanted to knit.
I hesitated forking over the money for so long because the pattern itself is $12—a hefty price tag for me when it comes to a knitting pattern. The written instructions, however, arrived on thick, heavy sheets of paper, almost like cardstock, with large, glossy pictures; I’m hopeful these sheets will survive the dozens of shoves and pulls they’ll undergo in my knitting bag as I refer to them over and over again. The other reason I took a while to make a decision was because I had to be sure I wanted to spend sixty-plus dollars of my birthday/Christmas money on wool yarn. (Very thankful for Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, otherwise the cost would have been higher!) In the end, because I really wanted to do another felting project that included needle felting and the bag looked soooo inviting and original, I just could not say no.
Before I ever ordered yarn, however, I did what many knitters decide to do on a project: change the colors to better fit my style. So to the Internet I turned for ideas, where I stumbled upon design-seeds.com (I highly encourage anyone who is contemplating colors and their complements to check out this site!). Amazingly enough, once I chose my color scheme, I was able to match all six colors with skeins of yarn from Knit Picks Wool of the Andes—which has over one hundred color choices!
I’m excited to undergo a new knitting challenge, and this time I thought I’d take you on the journey with me, so every few weeks (give or take a week depending on how often I get to knit, now that my girls are on summer vacation!) I’ll share my progress with you, along with any woes I’m certain to have. Because a project isn’t a project if it doesn’t have any woes, right? 😉
To be continued… 🙂
Scattered Whimsy 