The placeholder pic (now at the bottom) is of the beautiful lake at Kanuga, the site of the knitting retreat my mom and I went to earlier this month.

1/22/17 Finished! I added a triangular piece to the top edge, but opted not to do a button and loop closure. I decided it would disrupt the pattern too much. To do the triangular piece, I cast on 37 sts separately and worked it according to the striped triangle directions. I made it larger so it would fit across the top edge well. To figure out what size to make it, I measured the cast off edge of one of the regular size triangles, measured the edge where I’d be attaching the cast off edge of the new triangle, and used that ratio to figure out how many sts to cast on. Worked perfectly! I then picked up sts along the cast off edge and did a 3 needle bind off with the live sts from half of the top edge of the bag (I bound off the other half). If I did this again, I would work 1 row with the picked up sts before binding off but as it is, I think it looks pretty good.

This has been such an interesting project for me--lots of new skills and techniques learned! Knitting “modularly” has been very freeing. I got an initial taste of that freedom when the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book came out and I, along with many other knitters, had my first taste of picking up sts and knitting in a different direction. Somewhere buried in a bag of UFOs is my rug yarn and tarn log cabin rug in progress. Even though I never finished it, I got some practice with the concept. Taking Jolie’s modular knitting class at the Kanuga Knitting (and Quilting) retreat earlier this month helped me take those early skills and run with them. I learned a ton about selvedge treatments, joining methods (including a super cool one that recreates an intarsia join), stacked central decreases, shaping, etc. Highly recommend!

1/19/17 I am making a modular bag modified from Jolie’s tissue cover pattern. Instead of using fingering weight yarn, I am using aran. So far I have the bag part almost done--just need to finish knitting the top border. I think then I will add a triangular flap and a loop closure. I might add I-cord for a strap, but I’m not sure.

Yarn: Used 3 colors of Jil Eaton Minnow Merino. I finished the red (46 yds/13 gm), and used lilac (used 10 gm) and hot pink (used 14 gm). The background color is Berroco Peruvia in Caliente (used 30 gm).

Needles: US8 7” Clover Takumi dpns