Lace Shopping Bag - Completed

To continue with my latest knitting craze of knitting in the round, I decided to knit a shopping bag for a Christmas gift. I used the Lily Sugar 'n Cream yarn from my stash. I was planning on using the yarn to knit up a few wash cloths and decided the yarn would be well used for a bag. I love it when I'm right.



Name of Pattern:
Lace Shopping Bag

Designed by:
Cecily Glowik MacDonald for Creative Knitting, May 2009 and Fall 2009 (mags)

Pattern/Garment Description:
Hold the plastic and save a tree: take this to the market instead.

Size(s):
One Size

Yarns Used:
Lily Sugar ‘n Cream in pastel multicolor and naturale color. Used 2-1/2 balls of the multicolor. Used 3/4 ball of the naturale. In total, used about 400 yards of yarn.




Gauge:
18 sts /4 ins in lace pattern

Knitting Tools Used:
Circular needles: 16 inch size 5
Circular needles: 16 inch size 7 (decreases)
Circular needles: 24 inch size 7 (for body and start of decreases)
DPNs: size 7 (decreases and knitting the handle)
Stitch markers
Bent tip tapestry needle to weave in the ends and sew the strap to the top edge of the bag

Techniques I used:
Join and knit in the round
Ribbing (K1, P1)
YO
K2tog
SSK
SK2togP
Garter stitch in the round

Changes I Made to the Pattern:
No changes were made

What I Like About this Pattern:
Great looking lace pattern





What I Dislike About this Pattern:
It took awhile to knit and finish this bag

My Pattern Rating (Beginner, Easy, Intermediate, Hard):
Easy

Conclusion/Additional Comments:
I knitted this bag as a gift for a family member.

The bag is knitted in the round from the top edge to the bottom. The strap length is about 25 inches long.

The bag ended up measuring 15 inches long (excluding the strap) and about 13 inches wide. It’s a bit stretchy because of the lace pattern, but the Sugar ‘n Cream yarn is quite sturdy.

This project seemed to go on and on. I carried this project with me and knitted whenever I had a spare moment. In total, I think I spent about 7-9 hours on this bag. The repeat lace pattern is a multiple of 9 stitches. Every now and then I had to tink a few stitches because I added an extra stitch or was missing one. There were 8 rows that made up one repeat pattern. A bit time consuming.




This is a great shopping bag with a lovely lace pattern. The bottom of the bag came out beautifully.