sprouting!

This little leafy bag was an improvisation: unswatched for, made up on the fly. It was a way of playing around with some techniques and patterns that I'd had in mind for a while.


The yarns are two heavy worsted yarns that are left over from past projects. The green is a rustic wool from some long-ago farmers' market. The brown is a handspun camel-hair yarn that I used for the Woodland Collar. I knit them on, I don't know, size 8s perhaps?

The leaf motif was a play on a pattern from Solveig Hisdal's Poetry in Stitches. The book is a masterpiece of Norwegian stranded colorwork sweaters, with patterns inspired by vintage textiles. I like to flip through it from time to time when I feel like a taste of inspiration and awe. Since its sweaters are far finer and more detailed than the things I typically like to knit, though, it was with great pleasure that I worked one of its motifs into this wee bag.


So, let's see, I started from the bottom, knit a circle from the center outwards with the green yarn, then added in the camel yarn and started the leaf pattern. At the top, I did a turning row in purl stitches, and then a hem, which I stitched down. I finished it off with an I-cord strap.

It's a very small bag -- just 3.5" wide and 6" high -- but it's just right for carrying the essentials when I take Isis out for our morning walks.

In other sprouting news, I've planted three new dyeplant seeds: madder, bedstraw, and woad. I already have coreopsis, marigold, and indigo started.


I'm hoping to get a good dye garden growing this spring and summer!