Another finish – Bright Tote Bag Lining

2013-brighttote
I’ve finished another project from my sewing project bag. I made a new liner for a tote bag that I made back in 2013. This Bright Tote Bag was the first big loom knit project I made. I used a Martha Stewart knitting loom. I single-crochet-chained every inch of yarn I used. It took a long while, but it was really enjoyable and worth the effort. Making this tote bag project helped me better my loom knitting skills.
The stitch pattern is what I call a ‘basket-weave’. I’ve heard it called a tile stitch and a cobblestone stitch. Doesn’t matter what it’s called, it was a fun stitch to do. I think it looks pretty good for my no-pattern first attempt at a loom knit project.
I’ve always liked the look and colors of this tote. I’m happy with the beads and oblong toggle button, both of which I sculpted out of polymer clay.
However, I never liked my open-pocket lining (lower left side of the collage-photo). Since I’ve figured out the method for setting zippers in the pockets in linings, I decided it was time to replace the lining in my old Bright Tote Bag.
It has a zipper-pocket on each side inside.
One side zipper-pocket is big enough for my 8-inch kindle fire and the other side pocket is big enough for a mobile phone and some other small stuff.
I’m ever so much happier with my old Bright Tote Bag now.

Wishing everyone a happy week of sunshine and smiles.

Holiday crochet vest – red metallic

My husband surprised me with several skeins of red metallic yarn. He said that he thought I might want to make something pretty for Christmas out of it.
It took me a couple days to decide on a vest… then I searched for a few more days for different patterns and downloaded several of them and printed them off. I tried them and was not happy with any of them. Then it occurred to me that I can free-hand a vest using an ‘open shell stitch’. Tah – dah and that is what I did.

This vest looks better offline than in the photos.
This vest is a fairly good example of shades of colors. It was made from yarn bought off the same shelf… however, there is a difference that I cannot see, but cameras pick them up.
I’m thankful that, to my eyes, in real life, the vest looks like it’s all the same shade.

Here’s a photo of the skeins I have left. Without the photo, I can’t See the shade differences of the skeins.
Next time before I start a project, I’ll take a photo and see which skeins are shaded. (If I can remember.)

This is hilarious (to me, but I’m old and sometimes easily amused)…
I wanted to get a fairly good photo of the ‘open shells’ to show the stitch is prettier than the photos of the vest show.
So, I laid the vest into the scanner and scanned it. To my surprise, it scanned the upper part to be gold and the lower part to be red. ~hearty chuckle~

Well maybe with all these bad photos, you can get the gist of the colors and the stitch pattern. 😉

Here’s wishing you successful holiday crafting!

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