Saturday at Sue’s

There was a mini get together of our local stitching group at Sue’s house on Saturday. I say “mini” GTG because, including Sue, there were only three of us. Sue, Darla, and me. We may have been a small group, but we had a marvelous time. We shared current projects, recently finished stuff, lunch, and lots and lots of laughs. And you know what? We’re all bad bloggers, because not a one of us took pictures. Oh well. Thank you, Sue!

The old bag

On Sunday I took apart my old knitting bag. It was a difficult thing to do—not from a technical standpoint, but from an emotional one. That old bag has been in my life for pretty close to forty years now. We’ve been through a lot together. I have plans for it, though. The handles will be reused for the new bag, and the old bag, once I get the lining out and my nerve up, will be felted, relined with the old fabric, and new handles will be found for it. I’ll end up with two great bags in the end, but still…

I gathered my things, and laid them all out on the guest bed in the next room. I measured, re-measured, and measured again. Then I finally cut the beautiful piece of fabric slated for the lining for the new bag—by the way, when I showed Darla and Sue the fabric Saturday, Darla thought that the fabric is a dupioni silk. Oooh. No, that didn’t sway me from my purpose. It’s gorgeous fabric. It’s a perfect match for the knit bag. Silk or no, it’s still my lining fabric. After cutting, the sides of the fabric got pinned where they’ll be sewn together after I dig through my grandmother’s thread stash and find something that’s a close enough match.

Then the truly scary part started. I got out the seam ripper and ripped back the seams that held the handles to the old bag.

I have to admit to feeling a bit better about this whole process when I tucked the edge of the new knitting bag through the slot in the newly released handle for a trial run. Ooooh. It’s really pretty.

Dave had originally told me that I should sand all the little rough spots and dinks out of the handles, but I didn’t want to. In the first place, I hate sanding. In the second place, I want the handles to look old. In the third place, I really hate sanding. So, after getting the handles free I dug out the bottles of Formby’s furniture cleaner and lemon oil, and cleaned them up a bit. You’ll get to see the handles later, when they’re attached to the new bag. They look a lot nicer! It’s amazing, really. They look much better, richer in color, cleaner, but still used and loved.

I’m hoping to get the new bag sewed up and assembled some time this week.

Afghan

Oh! I’ve been meaning to tell you. I finally sent the afghan up to Mom. I sent it the Tuesday before Mother’s Day, and she got it two days later. And she loves it. It goes perfectly in her TV room, where she’s already had occasion to curl up under it.

Next up: sweater

I’ve had ten balls of Katia’s fuzzy Baltika yarn for years and years. I have color 11, a very nice dark gray. It’s been calling to me lately. So has this pattern: Sweatshirt Sweater from HeartStrings FiberArts. The stated gauge on the yarn isn’t quite what the pattern calls for, but I think it’s close enough to work. The bugger is that my ten balls of yarn don’t have quite enough yardage for the long-sleeved, medium sweater I want to knit—the pattern includes instructions for both short- and long-sleeve versions. I’m hoping my LYS will having something that I can use for the hem and cuffs… either more of the same yarn in a different color (black or teal would be nice), or a different yarn with the same gauge that’ll go. We’ll see. Kristie’s going to help me look on Wednesday.

The green shawl

Meanwhile, slow progress is being made on the green shawl. It’d be faster if I spent more time on it, but I think I only got a couple rows knit all weekend. That clearly needs to change. I promised you pictures, though, so here are a few. I think I’m at about row 130. I recently started the second go-through of the chart. As you can see, Ricki was a good helper this morning.

She got bored before we were done, though.