FO Friday: Autumnal Decarhombi
Pattern: Decarhombi (deck-ah-ROM-bye) (on Ravelry)
Designer: Myself
Yarn: Just over 4 skeins (to keep color changes between skeins smooth, if you didn’t care about it and did leather handles as I did 4 skeins should do it) of Plymouth Yarns Boku; 95% Wool, 5% Silk; 99 yds per 1.75 oz skien; color 4 (green, purple, rust)
Needles: US 11 (8.0mm)
Size: Ginormous pre-felting; 12 X 12 X 8.5 inches post-felting
Handles: Grayson E Large Rolled Leather in Buckskin (Olive looked good too)
When I first proposed the Mitered Diamond Bag that appeared in the IK Felt 2008 recently I also proposed this version. The overall shape is basically the same, but the construction is different. Two different sized squares are used to create the bag without any seaming required! It takes ten squares to make the bag, hence the name of deca (ten) rhombi (plural of rhombus which a square is).
Using an ombre striping yarn highlights the construction of the bag, yet softens it’s angles with a watercolor feel. The Boku that I used felted very fuzzily (almost like Lamb’s Pride) which further blurred the lines of the striping. I may yet shave it though as I find overly fuzzy bags pill and cause my clothes I’m wearing to pill as well. The silk content did cause a tiny bit of stitch definition to remain. I’ll see how it goes for a bit first. There are many other yarn options on the market currently in varying price ranges. Noro Kuryeon or Silk Garden would be lovely as would SWTC’s Karaoke or Patons SWS (Soy Wool Stripes).
A more mod and angular look could be achieved by doing your own striping sequences (perhaps with the aid of the stripe generator or the random number generator) with feltable worsted weight scraps. If I weren’t tired of US 11 needles and hadn’t recently added things to an already moderately full design calendar I think I’d be jumping on that.
Perhaps a smaller version using the leftovers from my Manos Mitered Diamond? That would be fun! I could try out the double i-cord option for a bit wider and flatter handle too. It’ll have to go in the queue. While it seems large, I actually knit this original one in under a week so it might be a good thing to have on the list for when I’m dying for a “me” project that is a semi-quick project.
