Yoga

Over 7 years ago I regularly went to a yoga class. Every Sunday I drove 20 or so minutes to the gym and spent an hour unwinding by doing yoga. After finishing law school I quit that gym and stopped going to yoga. Eventually, I bought myself a yoga mat. The yoga mat got used for sit ups and as a dust collector for years. About 2 weeks ago I went to a yoga class. My first in over 7 years. Finally, my mat was put to the use that it was designed. Since I was, 2 weeks ago, still on a yarn buying embargo, and since I finished the last sweater I could make using UFO or stash yarn, I decided to make a bag for my yoga mat. I know that there are good patterns out there for yoga mat bags, but I didn't want to follow any of them. I figured that this would be a good opportunity for me to use the Durrow cable by The Girl From Auntie. I liked the Durrow cable and wanted to try it for some time, but had no idea what I could use it for.

My first attempt at the yoga mat bag was close to an utter disaster. I started by just making the cable, using left over Sugar Plum Cotton-Ease, then for the body of the bag, I decided to use some bright red Lamb's Pride Bulky that I had planned to use on a different bag (it would have burned my eyes if I did the first bag). The reason I stopped work on this version wasn't the difference in the gauge between the Cotton-Ease (worsted) and the Lamb's Pride (Bulky) nor was it the fact that the colors clashed, not it was the fact that I didn't have enough of the Lamb's Pride (thank goodness for small favors).

When I saw that I was running out of yarn, I mentally scanned the yarn in my stash and decided that the multi-color, stranded knitting, bulky yarn bag I was going to do, would never be done, so I frogged it and took the purple yarn for my new bag.

The bag is knit using size 10, 16" addi turbo needles. The bottom of the bag is crocheted, I didn't have size 10 dpns and couldn't see buying any for this project. To make a strap for the bag, I increased near the bottom and moved the original stitches onto a holder then knit the increase stitches as part of the bag. Latter, I double knit the strap, then joined the top to the top of the bag by knitting 3 together.

For the top of the bag, I made a eyelet cable border through which I ran a crochet chain to create a way to close the bag.

It took about a weekend to make the bag and I am very pleased with the finished product.