Chris' dice bag

Two years ago I made a chulo for my nephew.  It was a surprise but, fortunately, he really liked it.  So much so that he requested a knitted bag to hold his dice -- said the other guys mostly used those velvety Crown Royal bottle bags but he wanted something different.

Nothing I like more than making something I know someone wants so I said, no problem!  And started looking around for a pattern for a knitted dice bag.  Ravelry's pattern library yielded just what I was looking for -- Nina Hyland's Deep Sea Flower Dice Bag made up in Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn.

But when I was all but finished, just in time for Christmas Day 2010, you understand, DH took one look and said "that won't hold enough dice!"  So I told Chris I had to frog my first attempt but would get a larger one finished asap.  The only problem was I really wanted to make the Deep Sea Flower one.  None of the other bag patterns I came across appealed to me at all.

So I decided to adapt the pattern by increasing to six petals instead of four.  That should make the bag about 50% bigger in diameter.  Surely that would hold enough dice for 40k... It seemed easy enough, except as often happens to me, I was in a hurry to get to the part I really liked, the flame-stitch-looking petal. 

The first part of the pattern is all about knitting a small square which is used as the bottom of the bag.  Stitches are picked up around the square to create the sides or petals.  But if I wanted to increase the number of petals, I would need to increase the bottom of the bag, too.  A hexagon instead of a square seemed like the way to go.  But I didn't have a pattern, couldn't find one quickly enough so decided to jump ahead to the fun part.  I could always go about adding the bottom last, couldn't I?

Well, I could and probably should but for some reason, when I was ready to do so, I couldn't get my mind wrapped around reversing the pattern and working my way down to a minimum number of stitches on my needles -- sort of like drawing up a hat at the crown or finishing my favorite knit houseshoes at the toe.  So I was left with this which I carried around in my knitting bag for several months.

Took it out at when fiber-y friends would gather and asked for ideas.  Which I received more than once but, it was like a cruel curse, as soon as I'd get home and try to decipher my notes and remember what seemed so reasonable, and yes, even sounded easy when told to me, wouldn't come together in my head and translate to my needles.  For some reason, I can "think" in crochet but I struggle to convert to a pattern anything knitted.

Finally, it was December again and I still hadn't finished last year's gift.  (This year's gift was to be a set of steampunk-styled dice.)  So I decided to go with another method and knitted a short-row hexagon (using this dishcloth pattern as a guideline), seamed it together and picked up around the edges just as the original pattern instructed but since I had 6-sides to work with I picked up a total of 90 stitches rather than 60.  That went fast and I was soon knitting away on the part I (still) liked best.

It took me about two days to finish the newly-started bag what with all the other holiday stuff going on.  But I'd had 12 months of it hanging over my head.

Am I the only one who does this kind of stuff?  Surely not.

But now I can heave a big sigh of relief that I have that project out of the way and move on to the next project -- when asked what he'd like for Christmas 2012, Chris said hand-knit gloves...