Mermaid Bag

Hmm...What can I use to knit a lightweight summery bag to take to the beach? After quite a bit of thinking, I came up with the idea of knitting using raffia. The biggest obstacle I faced was finding some darn raffia that came on a spool and was a continious strand. I searched the internet for days and came up with nothing. Craft supplies in our little town are sadly lacking, so I drove an hour to a Michaeal's and found a few spools, and in different colors. The raffia was a little hard to work with, but mostly because it was knotted up periodecally on the spools. I bought what I thought would be plenty, but ran out about 3/4's of the way through the bag, so back to Longview I went for more raffia. Thank heavans they still had some. The mermaid on the front was just cut out of different colored felt pieces and appliqued to the front. (Actually, it looks a little off kilter here. Oh, well...) I brushed some glittery paint onto her tail to give her a fishy shine.

I then found this fun retro inspired canvasy fabric for the lining and proceeded to sew it in. Now, think about sewing a fabric lining into a loose knit raffia bag. Easier said than done. I was going to do it by hand, but that proved more than my fingers could bear to push the needle through those layers, so I abused my poor little sewing machine and finished it that way.

I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. It has been sent off to my swap partner in a Summer Swap that I participated in. I hope you enjoy it, Jenn.

On my Starbucks cup today:
"The world is smaller than you think, and the people on it are more beautiful than you think."
~Bertram van Munster
I love it...