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Here's a really quick knit! It's the Saturday Market Bag from Magknits, done with modifications a la distressed. One skein plus a little contrasting color of kitchen cotton, two days, and Bob's yer uncle. This is a birthday gift for my MIL, who is an author and has various tote bags for carrying books and notebooks and things around. Her totes are mostly old and not in that great of shape, so I thought I'd make her a new bag. And since it's a "market bag," it'll also be good for quick trips to Henry's or the store, as she's definitely one to bring a reusable bag for groceries. I will be making one for myself to replace my current very sad library book bag (which M got as a handout at some computer conference or another), and my mom has already asked for one as well.

click for bigger, but sorry it's blurry--photography by a 4-year-old

I thought half-way through that I was doing the stitch pattern wrong. Here's mine:

click for bigger

And here's what's shown in the original pattern:

I realized after some stretching out and pondering that what's shown in the original pattern is the back side, even though the "lace" row is labeled (RS). I can't tell in the zoomed out picture on the pattern whether hers is "inside out" from mine or not in the final version or not. In any case, I liked the twisty side, so I made that the outside of my bag.

Anyway, here are the specifics:

Pattern: Saturday Market Bag, by Jodie Danenburg, with modifications done as described in this blog post by Liesl Gibson. Additional notes below.
Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n' Cream, in sage (main color) and Country Side Ombre (handles)
Needles: US15 for body, US9 for handles
Notes/Modifications: As was done on distressed's blog, I cast on only 35 stitches and knit 14 repeats of the four lace rows, folded it in half and sewed up the sides. I picked up 27 stitches (it worked out better than her 26 for me) on one side, leaving four on a stitch holder, binding off the middle, and knit 66 rows (33 ridges, note this is longer than the referenced blog post) of garter stitch on the last four stitches before kitchenering the end together with the four on the holder. I made sure to have purl rows facing me on each needle, so that I could kitchener "normally" to make a knit row between them. Repeat on the other side to make a second handle to match the first.
Next time: I think I'll use a German Twisted cast-on instead of a simple long-tail, as my cast-on edge is really different from the cast-off edge. Or, I might knit a row before starting the lace. Since the two edges end up being the top of the bag, I'd like for them to match better than they do. I'll have to play around with that.

Her birthday is Friday, I hope she likes it!