Summer Satchel

Pattern: Summer Satchel

by Leigh Radford in
One More Skein: 30 Quick Projects to Knit

Yarn: Red Heart Eco-Cotton Blend
75% recycled cotton / 25% acrylic
145 yd/85 gr - a tad over 2 balls
color 1340 Almond

Needles: size 7
16" circular and a set of dpns

I just happened upon this book at the library last Friday and brought it home for a browse. Unlike some of the others in the one skein series, you'll notice the MORE in the title of this one. Most of the projects call for two skeins of the specified yarn.

Naturally it was a bag that caught my attention. Just the thing, I thought, to throw over my shoulder when I head to Stitches South this weekend. Fun, as well, I thought for the summer ahead.

I had seen this yarn last summer and thought it would work for a bag but never got around to making one. The cotton component comes from remnants generated in t-shirt manufacturing. I wonder if it is not the same as 2nd Time Cotton? It can be machine washed and dried, too, which will probably come in handy as the summer wears on (and on, and on).

The pattern has you start the full amount of stitches on a provisional cast on at the bottom and knit up through the handles. You then release the provisionally held stitches and decrease the bottom. It really was a quick knit.

Speaking of 2nd Time Cotton, Helene Rush, knitwear designer and owner of the yarn company Knit One Crochet, Too, has a new podcast. Perhaps you recognize her name as she designed the popular free sweater pattern Hey, Teach! from the Summer 2008 Knitty.

Summer 2008! Could that have been three years ago?? As a matter of fact, there's a bag pattern over in that same issue that would work great in this yarn.