Sipalu Bag--Provisonal Cast-on 80 stitches

NOT a good way to do provisional cast-on

I thought I'd share this idea I had for provisional cast-on of the 80 stitches. NOT a good idea. I couldn't get the provisional stitches off the stitch holder.

I finally found some slippery waste yarn and did a correct provisional cast-on.

A correct way to cast-on

Sipalu Bag--The Welt

What is a Welt anyway? I'm going to call it the border of the bag (BOB). The directions say to "Switch to Color A; Knit on Row." No problem. Now it says to "Work five rows in reverse St st".

I decided to work the 5 rows like this: P,N,P,N,P. I have read discussions about the correctness of this; I might be wrong but it's my bag! Now you're supposed to PU 240 stitches from first row of A on the WS of the work." Since I had nice purl bumps from the very first row of color A on the WS I used a second cable needle and picked up all the purl bumps on that needle. I read a discussion wondering if you couldn't do it one at a time, but I'm glad I didn't because first count was 237 stitches (yep, I missed some). I used split-ring markers and tagged the three stitches once I found them.

Finally you take a third needle and knit Stitch 1 from front with Stitch 2 from pickup. When you finish all 240 you have a nice welt!


Picking up 240 stitches


All stitches picked up


Knitting together to form the welt

Sipalu bag Side Welt

Ok, I finally discovered that the Side Panel is made by knitting Row 1 of the Side Panel Chart 20 times. Then you do Row 2 of the Side Panel chart 20 times. And on and on...

After ripping back several times (aargh!) I decided to put stitch markers in every 36 stitches. That way I would discover mistakes sooner and only have to rip out 36 stitches if and when I messed up! After I did this I only made two minor mistakes and my stress levels went way down. It took two nights of knitting but I finished the Side Panel. On to the Welt!

Step 1--dealing with the Provisional Cast-On

Provisional Cast-On of 240 stitches! I thought I knew how to do this. After searching online and referencing my books this is what I came up with...I will discover much later on that my clever cast-on is really just the long-tail cast-on and will have to be taken out stitch by stitch....

My Sipalu bag

I decided to make the warm colors Sibalu bag. As soon as I read the directions I about gave up! Luckily KnitPicks has a KAL on their website for this project. After seeing bags in progress I got a big a-ha! and cast-on. I will share my progress with you in the next weeks.