If you keep tabs on my progress bars to your left, you may have noticed that Quinn #2 hit 100% a couple days ago. You know what that means? I finished writing the pattern and posted it!

Free Quinn Cabled Bag Pattern

The complete package is a 9-page pdf, with nice big photos and instructions in charted and written form. I daresay it looks like a real knitting pattern.

I’m pretty pleased with what I put together, although the true judges will be you, my fellow knitters. I had a lot of fun designing Quinn, I hope you will have a lot of fun knitting it!

Pattern Preview:

Remember my adventures in Rogue? All my gauge issues and time spent with the hair dryer?

Here’s take two.

Turns out that the Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran does not just bloom and grow on the first wash, but also on the second and the third.

I measured Rogue after its Eucalan soak today and the bust came in at a whopping 42″. I have a 34″ bust, people, and that’s on a good day. I laid Rogue out to dry next to my Hourglass sweater and it was comical. The two sweaters didn’t even look like they belonged to the same person.

I got out my trusty hair dryer again, gave Rogue a few half-hearted shots of heat, sighed and gave up. I needed more power. So I gathered up my Rogue, cradled it as if I might never see it again, apologized for what I was about to do to it, took it downstairs, and threw it in the dryer.

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Some time last night, in the middle of the Big Brother and CSI watching and the Print o’ the Wave Stole knitting, I got bitten by a muse. It must have been Terpsichore, muse of the dance, otherwise why would I have started thinking about knitting a cute little clutch suitable for a prom?

A lace pattern in chunky yarn, maybe with a leaf motif. Something a little more advanced and a little more polished than those oft-knocked-off Margaret Nicole bags (which, in turn, may be a knock off of a free pattern). Baby blue, or maybe black. Or one of each!

I thought about using wooden rods a la Margaret Nicole, but decided I wanted something a little bit…sparkly. Prom, remember? Never mind that I’m nearly a decade too old for prom. Besides, we did have a grad student prom/glorified cocktail party this spring. So there!

And then I hit upon it. Silver rods, or maybe a silver purse frame, upon which I could hook a short, elegantly-beaded handle. It would be cute. It would be sparkly! It would be fit for a prom queen.

So I went to scour the internet in hopes of finding exactly what I was looking for. And from what I found instead, you’d think that crafters only make large, tacky purses, because why else would the market be flooded with these?

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