Thank you oh so much cowl... and string bags

Oh my, we have already had a week of summer holidays. Full of seeing lovely people and a dreamy long weekend in Chichester spent with Linda and Ems including a rather splendid day at Goodwood as Mr R and Ems took part in the Brompton World Championship. And a lazy day planned today.

So, on with the cowl and string bags. P has been oh so lucky to have the delightful Kelly as his teacher for the past two years (and is oh so happy to have her again next year!) so we/I decided on a summery cowl to say thank you for being so lovely

The dobby dot fabric came from Ditto and was simply sewn together with a neat french seam to make  a large loop. Inspiration for the pretty edge came from the purl bee's edged linen wrap. 

And the other grown ups received a thank you... string bag. Of course. Such an obvious thank you present. The first was made following the recipe for the everything & anything crochet string bag from dottie angel's and ted & agnes' granny chic though I made the top edge and handles wider

and just look at the bottom!

This was made using wool from the basket - two balls of rowan handknit cotton in ice water and some cassis. This is a great, strong cotton for making string bags.

And then I saw this one and had to make one. Or two. This is a free pattern on the classic elite yarn site called the Provence summer string bag. And a summery bag needed summery colours

Or so I thought (Patch chose the colour below!). This is Rico essentials cotton dk in melon and royal below

I had meant to follow the pattern though got distracted on this blue version and made treble stitches where there should have been doubles. Oh well. Other than that I kept to the pattern! These use three balls of the Rico, though hardly any of the third ball.

I loved them so much I made myself one of each...