Here’s the newest installment of our
“History of Knitting” Kits:

The Soleado Bag!

This is a shoulder bag worked out of Cotlin using motifs
and construction methods inspired by the diverse fiber arts traditions
of Central and South America. This was a really fun project to design–I
always love working on our “History” projects because I learn so much
from them! The three major areas of fiber arts I drew on in designing
this piece were spinning, knitting and weaving. Much anthropological
information has been gathered from spindle artifacts collected in
Central America, and the central medallion of the bag was inspired by
the motifs found on ancient spindle whorls (that’s the disc-shaped part
of the spindle.) The stranded colorwork motifs were inspired by Peruvian
knitting (which Kerin also interpreted last year in her amazing Chullo
Hat pattern), and the borders of bi-color linen stitch between the
motifs was inspired by the rich weaving tradition of South America,
which are predates knitting in these region by several centuries at
least. The kit includes yarn and pattern to make the bag, and a brief
written history of the traditions that inspired the pattern.

While I can’t say that I’m in the camp of non-obsessive sock
knitting, I know it’s not for everybody! But, with such wonderful
colors, Stroll Tonal
is pretty universally appealing whether you like socks or not. So, if
not socks, what do you do with it? Well, I’ve got a few ideas!

First,
I have to say that our IDP
designers have done a bang-up job of showcasing our yarns to their best
advantage. And there are a lot of patterns that would look awesome in Stroll Tonals!
Here are a few:

Beverly
Cardigan by Snowden Becker

I can imagine
this in the “Gypsy” colorway of Stroll Tonal
with Black Stroll as the
accent. Very elegant!