It always seems daunting when I’m faced with reverse engineering one of my knit designs. Even the seemingly simpler designs.

Reverse Engineering Isn’t That Difficult

I always forget what often happens when I post photos of previous projects. Blog readers want to know what the pattern is. If it’s someone else’s pattern, it’s usually easy to find the name of the pattern I used and let them know. Even easier if it’s one of my patterns. But if it’s something I designed on the needles, I will often get a lot of requests to document the design. To write a pattern. That’s not always so easy.

I posted the photo of me wearing my knitted man-purse in the last blog entry. Again, I forgot blog readers would want to knit it. It’s happened before with this very project. If only 1 or 2 people ask, I will often come up with an excuse of why I don’t want to create a pattern. And while this design seems simple to document, it’s not quite so simple as it looks.

I knit the original man-purse in May of 2016.

It will definitely require that I re-knit this project. The bag starts with the bottom…a narrow rectangle. Purl stitches are picked up in-the-round to create a fold and then the body is knit. The front of the bag has a 1″ hem in the front, and a 5″ shaped flap in the back. The shoulder-strap is two pieces of braided yarn, overlapped and tied to each other to form an adjustable length. There is an i-cord button-loop and an i-cord loop sewn inside with a lightweight carabiner for holding keys.

Simple enough, but it requires writing up all the instructions. as well.

Pattern Writing – Test Knitting

So, I’m doing that now. I should have a beta pattern ready this week in case anyone would like to test-knit one (it requires about 120 yards of bulky wool yarn in the main color and 10 yards of bulky wool yarn in the contrasting color…it also requires knitting bulky yarn on a US3 or 3.25 mm needle…so it’s a bit rough on the hands). Contact me here if you’d be interested in test-knitting (it would need to be complete before the end of April and you would need to post progress photos on your Ravelry projects). You’d be eligible to get the final pattern for free and any one of my other patterns as a thank-you.

Current Knitting

Having the concentration of a puppy, I put down the Chevron Striped wrap and started knitting a new murse immediately.

I could have sworn that I used Bulky wool yarn (Jamieson Shetland Chunky) and US1 needles (2.5mm). But by the time I got a few inches into the body of the bag, I knew something was wrong.

The fabric was too dense. It was VERY difficult to knit such a dense fabric. And I wasn’t getting the same gauge. I ripped it out and started again. I switched to a US3 (3.75mm) needle and now it’s moving along smoothly.

I’ve also almost finished writing the first draft of the pattern. So, while it may not look like I did a lot of fiber-related work since Friday, I have.