[knitting] Knock-off

I spent a good portion of last night trying to write out a pattern for the Valentino bag. I got the graph paper out, several reference books, the little swatch I knit up and tried mapping it all out. Dude, it's hard. I don't know what the symbol is for "put one stitch in the cable needle, move to back, knit two, knit one stitch from cable needle, put two stitches on cable needle, move to front, knit one, knit two from cable needle." I don't even know if what I just wrote makes any sense. It's supposed to be some kind of 'antler' cable, but I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to see what I can accomplish this week, then send the pattern off to someone who was kind enough to inquire how far along the pattern I had progressed, thereby galvanizing me into action.

Look at this picture of the bag. Seems there's going to be a stole to match the Hobo bag. The stole would be simple: just make a long rectangle out of the bag's pattern. Do I smell a knit-a-long? I like this picture with the model. It gives me an idea what size needles/yarn I should be using for the bag- and I can see now that the cable I charted for the middle is wrong... CRAP! [Alert! I like how the word "crap" looks like it's coming out of the model's ass.]

Checking around for more knitted-knock-off inspiration, I found a $930 Fendi "Knit Chef Bag" (whatever that means), which is merely a garter stitch ruffley creation, which looks like it could be knit up quickly with bulky yarn.

Over in the land of more moderately priced goods, check out this ruffled scarf by Free People. I saw it the other day at a local boutique and thought, "I can crochet this. Man, it would be so easy. And this thing is made out of acrylic! Fifty-four bucks?! Come on!" I got the Interweave Knits crochet magazine that has a ruffle scarf pattern. I think I'll use it as the basis for the Free People Kit Ruffle scarf.