The Cascading Fuchsias Market Bag is finally completely finished, and ready to be given away...

But that didn't stop me from pretending it was mine for a day.

The bag turned out very well, and I'm sure that the recipient will be pleased with it. It was a pretty fast project, and I would consider knitting it again. I used Cascade 220 for this project and size 11 needles for the bag body.

The flowers were fun to make and really set off the bag in my opinion.

Can you see the little sewn on seed beads?

As for the bag's interior, I hired a seamstress to line it according to the instructions on Nora Bellows website. She added two zippered pockets in contrasting colors as well as a snap closure. I think that the pockets and snap make it a more useable piece.

After the bag was lined, I sewed on the vines and flowers with a matching sewing thread.
I love how the vine wraps around the bag handle.

Thankyou to my lovely friend Audrey for her wonderful photography!

My Cascading Fuchsias Market Bag is finished! I felted the bag last night and I'm just waited for it to dry before having the lining put in. I am not a confident seamstress so a friend is doing it for me. I should get some finished project pictures up in a week or so depending on how long it takes her to put in the lining.

Here are a few pictures I took before the bag was felted.

The green floral fabric will be the main lining, and the two other fabrics will be used for contrasting pockets. I can't wait to see it when it is all done! I think it will be sooo cute!

By the way...A two year old+a ball of yarn+30 seconds unsupervised=

Having two works in progress just wasn't enough for me and I was forced to cast on something new.

Last Friday or so I started the Cascading Fuchsias Market Bag by Nora Bellows.

Since I took this picture last Saturday I have finished knitting the bag body and one flower. I should be done and ready to felt in just a few days!

This project has been fun because I have gotten to switch back and forth between the mindless bag knitting and the intricate flower construction. It has been an enjoyable balance.

As I have mentioned before on the blog, I really enjoy making and giving hand knit gifts. I am making this bag for a family friend that I will be seeing at the end of this month. I will also be starting a scarf for a friend of hers that I will be meeting for the first time. I hope that they like their gifts. It can be so hard to pick out presents for others especially if you have never met them.

When The Scarlet Skein first started carrying this pattern in the shop I didn't think that much about it. It was cute but I didn't have a "have-to-cast-on-right-now" moment. A few weeks ago, however a customer came in with her finished bag and needless to say I immediately started picking out colors. Although attractive, the pictures on the pattern don't do it justice.

It is even cuter in real life.

Nora Bellows is an awesome bag designer anyways. All of her designs are great. Last year, before the blog, I made the Night Garden Evening Bag as a purse for Ava.

She loves it! It's the perfect size to hold her crayons, paper, sticker book, and pretend wallet. She carries it around everywhere.

What I especially like out of all of Nora's designs are the ingenious flowers. I really like the Camellia Flower pattern. Here I knit and felt the Camellia flowers and sewed them onto a felted diaper bag that I made. (Again, this is before the blog.)

I also did some non-felted versions here out of Cascade Fixation for some headbands I made for Ava.