Last week I passed by ASCP Technologist exam in Microbiology.

One hurdle down, only another giant one to go.

But as a little treat, my lovely Mr M bought me a new toy to play with, and play with it I have:

Yep. It’s a Silhouette Cameo. I haven’t done much with it yet so far, but have various things in mind!

Mr M’s brother arrived on Friday with his girlfriend for a week or so, we went to Santa Cruz on Sunday and had fun at the Boardwalk, and did a Segway tour:

So. Much. Fun.

And somehow I managed to catch the sun a bit, even with factor 50 on? What gives?

Anyhow, that wasn’t really the purpose of this post. Now I have my exam out of the way, I have a little more free time to craft, and time that isn’t plagued by guilt that I should be studying! I have a large collection of books, cookbooks, sewing books, craft books…….. Time to tackle some projects! I selected this one:

I must have had this book for about a year, and you can see by all the colourful tabs of paper, that it is one of those books that I have gone through and gone “ooh that looks fun”, “I should make that”………………. Yeah… I have made nothing! But I had some worsted weight yarn leftover from making my cushion (I overpurchased), so thought I would tackle this bag for starters.

It came together really easily, you work the pattern from the top down, with a long handle that feeds through a slot in the front to hold it together. The top band is worked in what is referred to as Linen stitch, but from what I can find online, linen stitch is something different, anyhow, it is sc alternately worked in both loops of the sc, and then back loops only. It ends up looking really nice though. The rest of the bag is worked in hdc and ch, ending up a stretchy bag.

I used stitch markers when I made each change in the pattern, so that I could keep track of what was going on with the pattern (and go back if I needed to), then “blocked” it when complete just with a little light steam. It wasn’t really necessary to do much, as it was in pretty good shape:

For reference, the finished dimensions of the bag are 9 1/2″ by 14″, and in the last picture I have 4 balls of yarn in the bag.

Here’s an action shot!

My verdict on the pattern? It was pretty easy to do, without any complex stitches, the instructions were clear and easy to follow, plus there is a pretty good glossary and guide to the stitches in the back of the book to help. The picture in the book made it seem a bit bigger than it turned out, if I made another? I would probably make the handle a little bit longer, and maybe the bag a little wider, but overall I’m pretty happy with it!