These pint-sized purses are both knitted from kits by Arlene Williams a/k/a Quanah for Yarn. You must be getting quite put out with me and my discontinued patterns. I acquired these kits during a Black Sheep Knitters Guild swap at our May meeting.

The patterns were publicized on the old KnitList, a listserv that many knitters participated in during the pre-Rav times. Its heyday would have been the early days of the consumer version of the internet when knitters first moved on line en masse. Quanah was a cat. You can read Quanah’s 13-part story on Williams’s website. He’s named after the Commanche chief, Quanah Parker. But, Quanah’s story has nothing to do with knitting little bags that look like birds.

Here’s a closer look at The Yellow Duckie Bag.

It’s about 6 inches high (not counting the webbed feet) and 6.5 inches long. I figure there’s a little kid somewhere who will appreciate the cuteness and the usefulness of this bag. My favorite part are the feet.

Here’s a closer look at The Bird Bag.

I think he’s a cardinal. Well, a redbird of some sort. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) It has been a bit over-interpreted, I’d say. But I like it anyway and a pre-schooler might find it the perfect place to carry important small things.

Here they both are, just hanging around on our pontoon boat’s canopy support.

If you decide you’d like to give these patterns a try, the free pattern for the Bumble Bee and the Frog purses that Williams posted to the knitlist in the middle 1990’s is archived here, courtesy of the WayBack Machine. Give one of those a try, and my guess is you’ll be able to reverse-engineer a yellow duckie or a redbird. 16 Ravelers have posted their versions of frog or bumble bee. Very cute.