Greetings from Finland! I spent my Christmas with my family at my Mum's and loved it. I like living abroad, but I do miss my family a lot, so being able to spend Christmas with them is always a very speial treat.

It's not often when I do any kind of craft that doesn't include yarn, but the seldom times when it happens, I really like it. This time the final product was successful too!

It's a long time ago when I accidentally felted Nick's sweater, I made a sweater bag out of it - here's the link to the type of sweater bag tutorial I used, I couldn't find the exact one I used.

I'm still working on the Finland pictures, but currently I've just been so busy! The bureaucracy and the thank you cards after the wedding, my acting hobby at the local theatre (premiere next month!) as well as work just seem to take up all my time at the moment. So I'll just need to show you something that's been finished for some weeks already... sorry! But I'm sure you'll like this one too.

Here are the actual specs:

You know how the scraps and half-balls just seem to become more in the deep corners of the stash closet, and before you know it the rest-bag is full again? I do. Therefore from time to time I have to make some kind of scrap project to clear the bag out.

My niece, whom I love very much and who is crafty herself, had her 14th birthday on the 16th January. For her I made this little bag.

The bag itself is knit with Novita's Rustika yarn, which is 51% wool and 49% acrylic. It felts a bit, so that's what I did with it - felted it. The pattern is the buttonhole bag from Mason-Dixon knitting. I think I used 10 mm needles and ca. 100 grams of yarn.

In all this moving hassle I am really not getting any knitting done. That, and all my yarn is already packed away! One of the last WIPs not in the cartons yet became a FO on Sunday.

This is the smaller version of my Emerald string bag.

We're moving from Ireland to Germany at the end of June, so my knitting time / passion has been greatly reduced in the last week. All my time seems to go to packing and organising.

I am trying, though! As the Emerald string bag became popular right away (yay!), I decided to do the smaller version too.

I've really got interested in designing knitted items! This is the second knitting pattern I publish. I'd appreciate any comments / test knitting reports!

Emerald string bag

A handy bag for groceries, yarn, or to use as a swimgear bag on the beach. The bag comes in two sizes, the bigger one is really big and might not be suitable as a farmers' market bag (if you fill it with frut and veg, it will become really heavy, because the bag is very spacious!). The pictured bag is the bigger one.

The bags are designed to be carried either in the hand, or over the shoulder. See the pattern after the "Tell me more" button. 

I offer this free knitting pattern for no fee for your own personal use - you may not sell this pattern or the hats you knit using it (please ask me about charity).

Please if you like this pattern do concider taking a look at the products I advertise here on my website and use my links for your Amazon & co purchases - it earns me a small fee to be able to cover the costs of running this blog!

I've been knitting hard lately, but bigger things (except for the Mouse Mitt ) and haven't had so many FOs to show. Well, I'll show my works in progress then.

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Jokusia neulomuksia työn alla:

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First, my pride and joy; another pattern from me (courtesy of Nick's Cat relaxing motif) , the Cat relaxing bag. Here's the front

My new job started last tuesday, and now I have to commute at the rush hour. It’s not far, but it’s still a 30 minutes spent in a glorious Dublin Bus. I decided that I need to get my yarn out of the closet and start knitting in public.