Pride

Not to brag or anything, but I just finished the best thing ever. I am so proud of this bag. It is what I dreamed it would be. Here's the story.

Three years ago I was far away from my knitting friends and living in New Zealand. I missed them and was, of course, planning Christmas gifts in July. Melissa asked for the Bob Dobb's face in the book Domiknitrix by Jennifer Stafford on a messenger style bag. Since she had no color preference, I decided to get creative and use up some leftover colors from other things.

The chart for the face uses three colors in one row, two for the face and one for the background. Having recently read some of Kaffe's books I decided to jump on in and use a combination of stranded and intarsia techniques. It took a while to knit Bob's face, but I admit managing all the little yarn balls in the back was fun. The rest of the bag was completed using random striping. When I returned home and gave Melissa the bag she was very excited. She loved how the face looked in knitting.

I didn't know it at the time, but I had made the object of which I would become most proud. I would talk about this bag whenever people would ask, "What is the best/coolest/most awesome thing you have ever made?" While I was happy that my hard work had gone to another knitter, I found that I was sad that I didn't have the thing I was most proud of knitting. I think this sadness came from a desire to show people the awesome that I had made myself and not being able to.

At the beginning of this year I decided to make another bag using three colors in one row. A bag that I could be proud of. But what to put on the front? I wasn't really into Bob Dobbs and I had already done that chart. My participation in a Harry Potter group on Ravelry (I'm a big dork) got me thinking seriously about a dragon motif. I've always adored dragons and having one to parade around sounded like so much fun. The chart would need to be in three colors, of course and so I set about looking for a dragon pattern that I liked. Not finding anything suitable I decided to design my own.

The bag itself is a simple messenger style. I knit the dragon first and then continued striping for the body. In an effort to chip away at my stash I used yarn I had on hand. A few days ago I finished sewing the lining and then sewing it into the bag. This means that it is officially done!

I love it. Even though it doesn't really go with anything in my wardrobe. I wear it proudly anyway.