Hi there! I want to knit the Frida bag on Ravelry. I calculate that it’s about 12” wide and 16-18” tall with a fold over top. And the pattern requires a size 4 needle. I would like a smaller bag. Could that be accomplished by using a smaller needle? I’m concerned a smaller needle will distort the facial features or make the whole thing look odd. Is there any way to cut down the size without ruining the pattern? Thank you!
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If this is your pattern I think using fingering yarn and smaller needles could work. How much smaller do want to make it?
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If you use needles and thread small enough you can make it very very small
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OMG I love this! I’ve been wanting to try knitting tiny things but 2mm is the smallest needles I can find in stores 
I wonder how she made her tools, but what she’s making with it is absolutely incredible!
Also the rest of the website has great textile art too. I went on looking at the anatomical forms and the quilted Lycra organs are amazing. Such fantastic uses of textiles! Thank you so much for the link! 
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Really quite stunning work.
If you search miniature knitting or micro knitting there are some resources tips videos etc. Nimble Needles has one which includes suppliers of needles and yarn or sewing thread. Althea crome sells needles but perhaps look at the other brand (i forget the name) nimble needles has tested too, one might be more readily available than the other for where live.
I’d like to work more finely than i do but not micro, I’d need a magnifier on a stand and not sure it would be practical for me.
It’s an example though of how almost anything can be made in a smaller size with the right needles and thread.
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Yes that’s the bag. I didn’t think of using lighter weight yarn. Very good idea. I hadn’t thought about
exactly how much smaller I want it to be, just purse instead of tote bag size. But knitting some swatches with
smaller needles and lighter yarn is probably the way to start. Thanks so much!
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Using a smaller needle will make the bag a bit smaller but probably not by as much as you’re hoping. It will also produce a tighter fabric and if it is too small for the yarn the color work may turn out tighter and less defined. If you would like the finished piece to be smaller but still retain the design proportions I would recommend a smaller yarn and the needle size recommended for that yarn. Since the entire pattern is scaled down evenly the facial features should still look the way they are intended to. If height is your primary concern you can also knit fewer plain rows than in the bag before the fold over part of the bag. Narrowing down the width is more challenging as it would alter the colourwork chart. I would love to learn how many others have already knit the Frida with something other than the original yarn such as sport weight or fingering size if they did how much smaller did it come out to be?
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Thank you for the info! I’ll look into it 
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Thank you for all your comments. In the pattern the yarn is described as sport or heavy fingering. So I did knit a swatch with lighter ”regular” fingering yarn and a size 3 needle. The width result was 3 1/2 “ wide instead of the 4 “ - per the pattern. But the length was still too “tall”. It would be a simple matter to eliminate the fold over, I don’t care for it any way. But then I would lose “Frida”. Then I thought I could get some graph paper and work out how to put the “Frida” centered on the back of the bag, I like that idea better. If I was a knit designer, that is. I’ve even thought about eliminating most of that background “noise”and just having the face on the front (with a little of the “noise” for definition) and name on the back. I’ve done some simple changes to patterns with good success but this would be my most ambitious attempt. I too would love to hear from others who have made this bag with or without changes. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
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Not many details with this project (yarn, needles) but it is made smaller.
You could try a finer yarn (thread weight or 2ply) on 2mm needles which would give more like a 19cm or 71/2" width without altering the graph. And then you could still make it smaller with graph changes.
There are some resonably easy to obtain 1mm needles too so you could go smaller.
Well I guess I would have eventually thought to check out all those projects on Ravelry 
but thanks for directing me there. It’s good to see all the ways others have used the pattern. Today I’m going to knit another swatch using size 2 needles this time and see what I get. Thanks so much!
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Maybe swatch a part of the face detail, so you get a good idea of the scale of the image?
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Actually that’s a good idea. And easy to do. I’ve been knitting swatches and with size 2 needles & fingering yarn & I get this - 6 1/2 stitches (round off to 7?) equals 1” and 9 rows equals 1”. I guess I could knit a swatch of the whole face if I wanted to. The “Frida” part too. There’s a knitting designer on YouTube that talked about swatches. One of hers was about 2 feet square because that was how big the repeat was on a blanket. And I found knitting graph paper on Amazon if I get that far. Thanks for your suggestion, I will carry on……
The swatches are worth the time you are spending.
All sorts of recommendations in Ann’s post including links to free knitting graph paper toward the end.
You are so right about swatches. When I learned to knit in my twenties and the pattern would say make a swatch before starting, I rarely did. I just wanted to dive in. As I get older and often want to make changes to a pattern I see how necessary the swatches are to get my desired results. The article was great, full of good info. Thanks so much!
If you get really into charting you might like large squared paper. I do have knitting paper and I do think the site where you can produce the paper to your own gauge is a really useful tool, but i discovered two things, my stranded colour work is very close to square stitches, not rectangular, so squared paper makes more sense and produces a chart which looks more simikar to the finished knit. And, i wanted large charts, the Frida is about 70 sts across (but that is one side, not all) which is tricky on the regular A4 paper, the square paoer i bought is a pad A3 size and as the pages tear out easily they dont et damaged if i need to tear them out and stick them together for larger charts.
Just thought I’d mention as i have made a few large charts and it’s been so much better since i got this paper, not expensive either.
Smaller needles will slightly affect the finished size, but they will also alter your gauge and produce a denser fabric which could impact on the appearance of the design. They are very small so if the Frida bag is detailed in colourwork it could be the case that the facial features look tighter or less defined if they were to been made smaller. It reminds me of Letter Boxed making a change to one piece can have an impact on the whole puzzle. The size of the needles does not only make the bag smaller it alters the proportions of all the stitches in knitting. For a noticeable size reduction but still keeping the pattern a lighter weight yarn and a smaller size of needles for that yarn will work better. This maintains the same look of stitches and similar proportions. You can also shorten either the plain rows or the fold over flap if that is part of a pattern but leave the colorwork part as it is. I would love to hear about anyone who has knitted this smaller and how they did it!
I’m so glad you mentioned sticking several pages of graph paper together. I thought about doing that and wasn’t sure if it would work. In my head it makes sense, theoretically I could draw the entire design onto several sheets taped together to be big enough. When I finish swatching and I’m satisfied with what that tells me then I’ll decide on paper. Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate it!
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Depending how much you want to change the design, there’s a chance you wouldn’t need to rechart it (which can take a long time drawing out). You might instead be able to print a few copies of the original chart and cut and rejoin those where you want them. If the chart is too small to work from you can enlarge and “tile print” which will churn out however many printed pages needed, you then trim the margins and butt join into one piece.
In my opinion paper masking tape on the back works better than plastic sticky tape, it folds well for storage. Don’t tape the front or you won’t be able to draw on the chart. (I align with the right side facing to get the squares spot on, i use a tiny piece of masking tape with reduced stickiness on 3 places on the right side, turn over and stick a full length of tape on the wrong side. The reduced sticky usually comes off without damage to the right side. To reduce the stickiness stick the tape to your clothes or a wooden table or something a few times before applying to paper).
In case you go for the blank squared paper here is a quick shot of one of mine as example. 3 pages of A3 5mm squared paper joined together. The page has about 78 squares on the longest edge.
I did try some small graph paper but to be honest it was too fiddly to draw on accurately enough to knit from.
Good luck. It will be great to see your progress with this. I saved the pattern, i might make into a sweater.