knitting socks

I have been really busy knitting, I have become fascinated with making socks! So in between knitting all my bags I now have to make time to knit socks as well.
I made a pair for my daughter a couple of months ago, and have been meaning to make myself a pair the same. Well they are almost done, and now I have ordered some sock yarn with a new pattern, the wool is an opal sock yarn called crazy, which will look a little bit more interesting than the ones here, it makes a pattern all by itself and all I have to do is knit, how cool is that!. I am really enjoying it, it makes a nice change from bags.

I also managed to spend 150€ on wool for my bags this week, I bought a kilo of yarn and some!!!!! So I now have lots of colours to play around with, I just need to create a new pattern for a small bag and I'm away.

Other things going on the last couple of weeks, well yes quite a few, one of which is that I have been painting for a friend of mine, she has just had work completed on the upstairs of her house and I have been painting it for her, I have really enjoyed doing it, one room is completed and the other is still work in progress, she is going to the UK for 10 days, so I won't be doing any more until she comes back.
This is my youngest son Sébastien, and he's been poorly again, this is the 3rd time in 6 weeks that his glands have swollen up, he has an ear infection and a sore throat poor little fellow.

Bag for my niece

Well I finally got some pictures done and after 3 attempts of downloading them into different folders, I actually found them! Woohoo!
I made this bag for my great niece who will be 6 next week, so I must hurry and get it in the mail so it arrives in time.
I had a little woven straw bag with flowers on it when I was little, so this bag was designed with that in mind.

I use 2 strands of yarn throughout to give the bag some strength, it then doesn't need lining as it is quite a tight weave, the handles are made by knitting i-cord which is a bit fiddly but well worth the effort, in fact the i-cord takes almost as long to knit as the bag!
The bag is knitted in the round so there are no seams to sew up, which is a bonus for me as it's my least favorite part of knitting. The top edge is made using a picot row and then folded over to get the nice effect around the rim, otherwise it looks a bit not finised off.
I added flowers to this one as it's for a little girl, but would still be suitable for an adult who likes fun accessories, the flowers are really easy and take about 3 minutes to make and I think they give it a finished off look.

The purple bag without the flowers, will be added to my store today, I also have done a larger version which is a shoulder bag with longer handles and is more practical for an everyday bag.

I really love making these bags as they are so easy to make, they just take a little time, but I spend most of my evenings knitting, and most of my mornings sewing them up and making the i-cord.

The small bags take around 4 hours to knit, and the larger bags take around 6 hours, so it's time well spent while I'm watching something on the tv.

new bags

Well I have been really busy knitting new bags, I have done 3 in the last 3 days, so I'm really pleased, although I have yet to sew them up!!!!
I love the knitting part but just hate the sewing up, so that's my job for today.
I really love doing these bags they are so quick to knit, I use 3 strands of yarn for thickness and strength, and the colors can be all the same or all different, giving them each a unique look.
I have taken a couple of pictures of work in progress and the finished bags will be put in my etsy store later today or tomorrow.I also received my copper toggles for the chainmaille bracelets that I made, I ordered them from hodgepodgerie she made them herself and they are lovely, I'm really pleased with them so thanks Stacy.
This bracelet will also be listed in my store.