So yesterday I was trying to figure out how to test some of my ideas without knitting up something huge and then ripping it out. And then it occured to me that I could test out some of my ideas by constructing the bag in miniature! I figured if nothing else, I'll have something cute that I can put in my purse or give to my mother, who makes dolls and is always looking for doll accessories. Since I had so much Cascade 220 left over from my Flappable Handbag, I figured I could use that. I'm only using a single strand for the first test bag.

Here's a few shots of my current progress:

The top picture is the base of the bag with the center flap that will be the divider. It's upside-down. The second picture is from the side, now that I have started knitting the sides up from the bottom and the third picture is from the top down.

You will notice that I am using my dreaded double pointed needles. I do seriously dislike DPs, but my enthusiasm for this little bag overcame my distaste for DPs. I figured it also might be a good opportunity to get more comfortable with them. I think felting projects are great places to teach myself new things because errors just disappear into the felted fabric. I practiced "English Method" knitting on my Flappable Handbad in preparation for two handed color knitting.

Today I have taken a vacation day to work on my masters thesis project, but I am going to reward myself for good coding behavior with a few rounds on my little bag every now and again. So I'll be posting more pictures over the course of the day to show progress. Hopefully later on tonight I'll get the chance to do some felting!