Dice, Dice, Baby!

My sons own and operate a store in Joplin, Missouri, called Hurley's Heroes Comics and Games.

I have wanted to create logo hats or other items for the kids. They don't want hats or scarves, so I decided a good test would be a dice bag. Nathan told me a dice bag should be of a dimension that would enable a player to put a few magic cards in with the dice without bending them when the bag is cinched shut.

I downloaded a copy of the store logo and inserted it into an Excel spreadsheet. I got a template for making a spreadsheet with cells slightly wider than they are tall, just like knitting stitches are, but I can't find the source right now. It's not terribly important.

I made the picture of the logo mostly transparent and colored the cells beneath to match. I was only interested in the large Superman-shield portion, and I got that directly from one of the kids.

In order to get enough detail to make the logo fairly clear in a small space, I had to use tiny stitches. I settled on size 2 needles and DK weight yarn.

The picture below shows the intarsia knitting of the logo, along with the chart and the selected yarn. What a chore! Every time the color changed, I needed a new bobbin of yarn. The rows with the crossbars of the Hs took nine. If I do it again, I will probably carry some colors over and let them float. The logo covers 28 stitches and 28 rows.

So I had my sample test logo. I put little eyelets along the top so a cord could be inserted later. Intarsia has to be knit flat, and if I was going to complete a bag with this one, I would have knitted a back to attach to this front.

There wasn't enough room to dedicate stitches to the black borders around the logo elements, so I embroidered them in using only half of the plies in some leftover yarn from Jason's afghan.

I think the black is a little bit jagged. I consulted with Jason, and he thought the black was a good addition.

I thought it might be easier to just knit the bag as a whole in the round, like  a sock or a hat and duplicate stitch the red and yellow on top of it instead of doing the intarsia. I cast on 64 stitches, leaving the front 32 stitches wide. This allows two stitches on either side of the 28-stitch logo.

The top four rows are garter stitch. Then there is a row of eyelets created by yarning over and knitting two stitches together, followed by another four rows of garter. Then it's all stockinette to the bottom. I put all 64 stitches onto scrap yarn so I could graft them together with kitchener stitch after I got the logo added.

I learned I can't duplicate stitch on such a small area. The messy intarsia was actually much easier. If I were going to duplicate stitch on something larger someday, I would have to remember to add lifeline guides as I knit along, instead of trying to sew them in later.

I wanted to get the bag finished, so I took my intarsia patch, frogged it back to remove the stockinette section above the garter stitch at the top of the logo, and bound it off. Then I sewed it onto the front of the bag and grafted the "toe" shut.

Here is my first finished prototype bag. I made the cord by just crochet chaining a length of the blue using a size F hook and knotting the ends. It is threaded through the eyelets and has enough length for a bow when cinched. It isn't really crooked. I just have it laid out askew in this picture.

It is too long. I don't really need any of the stockinette that is below the garter stitch at the bottom of the patch. This is more like a large-screen cell phone sack. I do like the way all the ugly ends of the intarsia knitting are hidden between the patch and the bag. Maybe the patch could be a pocket for the gamer to stick a key in, or something, if the top is left open.

I think I need a little more height above the eyelet rows, so it will have a nice bit sticking above the cord when it is cinched closed.

If I make a bag with a patch attached to it, I could use larger needles for the bag. It just needs to be tight enough to have some density and cover the contents. That would go much faster. I can make logo patches to attach to anything: Hats, scarves, socks, taablet computer sleeves, whatever. Now that I know what I'm doing, I can make better patches and make them faster.