"AmyBear" Backpack by Mary Jo Eckhart

AmyBear’s Pattern Adventure by Amy Wolfson is comprised of a stitch book, design templates, and 158 stitches. Amy‚s stitched sample is quite small, only about 3 inches by 3 inches. I wanted to make mine considerably larger to be used for the flap of a backpack.

I based my design on 3 different but compatible skeins of Watercolours by Caron as suggested by Amy. These are the only fibers I bought for this project, the rest were all from my embarrassingly large stash.

I have always kept my fibers sorted by color. I took one color at a time & dumped all my blues, for example, out on the floor next to the 3 skeins of Watercolours. I removed all that didn't work & put the rest into a bag to use. After working with a length of thread, I moved what was left of that skein to a second bag. After using all the threads in the first bag I then started in on the second bag and reversed the process. I did this a few times, until I had filled my design area.

As Amy suggested, I started near the center of the design area, working the larger stitches first. I used all of the 158 stitches several times, working outward from my first block. My hardest decision was deciding whether or not to use any black in my design.

I loved working on this project because every little block was like starting a brand new project: new color, new stitch, new thread. And what is better than starting a new project, except maybe completing something fun to use? Can you find my initials?