Knitted Chalk Bag Redux

My simple knitted chalk bag has been serving me well at the bouldering gym so far, and has even gotten some compliments from other climbers. I’ve gotten another friend to start climbing with us, and instead of carrying around her chalk in the plastic baggie it came in, I made her a bag of her own:

The black and blue color scheme might be more appropriate for my bag, as every climbing session I bang my knees or legs into something: a hold, the wall, the floor, etc. My knees are so often bruised it has become a running joke with the friends I climb with.

Instead of making an I-cord drawstring like I did before, I used a round shoelace and a drawstring cord lock, which is so much easier to use. The I-cord is too thick to really feed through a cord lock, so I just tie it closed. It doesn’t close as tightly, though, so everything in my bag gets a decent dusting of chalk.

This pattern is available for free at pdxstitch.net // check out the Ravelry pattern page

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Simple chalk bag for rock climbing

I know it’s been radio silence here on the blog for nearly a year, but I can assure you that it doesn’t mean I haven’t been crafting. The time has been full of ups and downs – a new job turning into an old job, new friends turning into old friends – but I’ve still been busy working away at the Helix Nebula cross stitch, knitting various things, and even taking up a new hobby: bouldering.

The great thing about bouldering (at least inside a gym, which is where I do it), is that you don’t need much equipment: just shoes and a bag of chalk to keep your hands dry. For obvious reasons, I don’t much care to make my own shoes, but making a bag to keep chalk in seemed a simple proposition. And I could make it colorful and fun, so it didn’t look like everyone else at the gym’s plain black chalk bags.

I poked around Ravelry and r/knitting for inspiration, but didn’t like how the patterns I was finding required picking up stitches on the cast-on edge to knit the bottom. I was thinking of knitting from the bottom up in one piece, analogous to a toe-up sock, but the math was too confusing to get a nice circular bottom. So I just knit from the top down, creating a channel for the drawstring, too.

For the ombré effect, I loosely followed the chart from this ombre hat pattern by Emily Dormier. The bag lends itself well to all kinds of decorative colorwork or stitch patterns. If I had infinite free time and a need for a lot of little bags, I’d make a rainbow striped bag, or a three-color ombré fade.

Get the free pattern from Ravelry or PDXstitch.net.

If you like the free pattern, show your support at ko-fi. Thanks!

Finished Project: Sleepy Fox

After a long hiatus of not posting because I had no finished projects to share, I finally finished something! I’ve been working on this cross stitched fox for a long time (it was supposed to be for a friend’s birthday, which was in August).

I guess it will just be an early present for his birthday this year!

The pattern is from Daily Cross Stitch.

Finished Project: Leopard print Fold-over Clutch

This was a productive week for me; I finished two commissioned sewing projects, most recently this fun leopard print foldover clutch:

And yes, I did take the clutch to a local café for a photoshoot. The light in my apartment has been miserable since autumn has fallen; we had so much rain yesterday I forgot the sun exists.

The leopard print, lining fabric, & the zipper were from Joann Fabrics. I made a little wrist strap from a strip of the leopard print folded over some stiff interfacing. I used lightweight interfacing on both the lining and the leopard print, so the bag is nicely sturdy and can stand up by itself. There’s also a little pocket inside for a phone.

The customer was very pleased with it and is excited to take it out on the town this season. Are you making any new accessories for fall?