It's a present for my 13 year old niece, who loves all things peace sign (as I did at that age, 21 years ago). It's also my first felted bag. I've heard a lot about them...but since I don't carry purses much, and have not the patience to knit anything larger, I have never attempted one.
The design is my own...except I took the peace sign chart from this website. Everything else I made up as I went along. I started at the point of the envelope flap, added 2-4 stitches every row or s0 until I reached 33 stitches (throwing a yarnover buttonhole in there along the way). At the end of the flap, I did a turning row (like you do for a hem) then I knitted a long rectangle with the peace sign chart on one side, and the contrast gray for the other, with another turning row in between them. I folded it, sewed up the sides and when I felted it (at 1:30 in the morning) it shrunk into this dandy envelope size. Then I decided it needed a tassle and a felted i-cord shoulder strap. The yarn was various worsted wools from my stash. The button is a knotted leather button I had in my sewing toolbox. And that's about it for the Peace Envelope Purse.Gift #2:
Pink and Green Baby Sweater This is an old project that I pulled out of my stash to give to Molly's friend Brooks who just had a baby. Again, I designed this as I went (and can only hope it will fit an actual baby). The contrast edging is in seed stitch, and the body is in stockinette. There is no shaping at all...just a bunch of rectangles sewn together, but the squared/slit neck and the 3/4 sleeves makes it work (at least in my imagination). The yarn is all cotton--an apple-y green for the body and a 3 strand yarn of pink, orange, and green twisted into one yarn for the contrast edges. It really is quite fetching, I think. I'd love to see how it looks on an honest-real-life baby. If I ever get pictures from Brooks, I will post them. This is the problem with my knitting. I'm always knitting baby things and giving them away. I often forget to take pictures, and moms never seem to have time to take pictures of my knitted goods and send them my way (it's cool...I know it's hard and time-consuming to have a baby either feeding off you, throwing up all over you, or sleeping on you most of the time). So I've never really seen any of my baby projects in action. I hope someday I will see some in action on my own kid...but that's a tall order.
