Polgara Knits

This is my friend and coworker Susan.  Although an avid sewer and quilter (and talented!), she was never a knitter until she went on vacation to Europe last month and stayed with a friend who sat her down and taught her the ropes.  Around her neck is her first ever finished project, a scarf she made with no pattern.  Her first FO, and already I envy her adventurous spirit to knit without a pattern, just letting her needles take her where they wanted to go.  She’s already started her second project, a feather and fan scarf, and seems to be hooked but good.  Whee!

So far, I’m loving the beads!  They’re doing a very good job of jazzing up an otherwise boring, single-colored Booga Bag. My smallest crochet hook only just barely fits through the pony beads when it’s holding yarn, and not all the beads are exactly the same size, so there’s some struggling with the pulling and twisting and trying to force some beads onto the yarn, but otherwise it’s working quite well. I’m a bit concerned about the yarn, though–I was stupid and forgot to make the i-cord handle first, so now I’m worried about running out of yarn–but it’s a small worry, and cannot dampen the sense of accomplishment I get when I look at the rows of pretty beads.

WIP: Little Coco (waiting for felting) It’s a fuzzy picture, but check out the cool stitch pattern on the bottom of the bag.

WIP: Pink Lady Bag (top left; bottom is knit)

I finished bag #5 last night, and immediately started bag #6, this time using Lion Brand’s feltable wool.  I’m using the same pattern that I used for my very first felted bag three years ago, which I conveniently found when I was cleaning my bedroom last week.  It’s call the Pink Lady Bag from Designs by Shelley, and it’s very easy, although it does involve the kitchener stitch to seam the handle. The Lion Brand is about 50 yards shorter than the listed required yardage, but I was in the mood to do something variegated, so while I’m hoping the 200 yards was just optimistic, I’m double-stranding two different colors (one purple, one variegated) just in case–since I bought two of everything at Michael’s last week, that gives me two sets of the mix.

I’m really enjoying this whole “cranking out as many bags as I can” strategy–takes the indecision out of my next project, which is what frequently stalls me out when I finish a project. With so many incredible patterns and yarns to choose from, I can never decide what to do next! I’m getting a little tired of the Booga/Little Coco type bags, though, and while I adore the Balloon bag pattern, it requires stitching the handles before felting, which I hate doing.  Hopefully this Pink Lady Bag is as easy as I remember, so I can get a few under my belt before going back to one of the other patterns.

Finally, a month later, I can post pictures of the deliciously soft scarf I made for my friend Kristen’s birthday last month. Isn’t it yummy? Don’t you just want to pet it? The colors are perfectly Kristen, and she seemed to adore it when I finally was able to give it to her this morning. (She may be an excellent actress, of course, but either way, her reaction was mucho gratifying.) It made me so happy to pick colors and a fiber that I thought she’d like, and I hope it makes her equally happy to wear it. In fact, here she is wearing it this morning, when my friend Allyson and I brought it to her:

She’d spent her morning picketing outside FOX Studios (she’s a WGA member, and a writer for K-Ville), and had been freezing her butt off the whole time. (This week was weird–chilly Monday, roasting hot Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, chilly Friday.) I think it looks verra cute on her, IMHO.

Okee, back to work on bag #5–it’s nearly finished, so soon I’ll be moving on to bag #6!

It feels like forever since I posted (recent) pictures, but it’s true! I downloaded them off my camera a mere three minutes ago, just to bring them here to you!

First, we have the turquoise and white clutch from One Skein, before felting.  Even the bottom is seamed, can you believe it?! I hardly can, and I did it. The colors remind me of something, but I can’t think what.  Something commercial.  Not Microsoft, not Apple…. They’re the same colors as my own employer’s logo, but I don’t think that’s it either.  Maybe it’ll come to me, someday.

Next up in our show and tell is the “What a Difference Blocking Can Make!” scarf, done in orange and red cotton in feather and fan.  The cotton was purchased from Suss Design (at least, I think that’s the name of her shop on Beverly, but you know who I mean–there’s only one Suss!) with the orange and red already wrapped together.  Next time, I’ll separate them and ball them separately, ’cause it was a nightmare trying to knit them off the same ball with their slightly different weights and tensions.  However, the colors make my heart sing, and that’s really all that’s important, right?

In other news, I cast on the purple and turquoise Little Coco last night while watching Chuck and Heroes.  It took me the full two hours just to do the bottom of the bag.  The stitch isn’t standard garter or even stockinette; it’s something for which I don’t know the name, but looks awesome and creates a stronger felted bottom than you get from garter or stockinette. I’ve always intended to make a scarf with that pattern, but so far it hasn’t happened.  The other reason it went slowly is the yarn–I’m using Lamb’s Pride, double stranded, which is thicker than I expected, and more tiring for my fingers. It should be easier once I’m working in the round, though.

And just for the hell of it, I give you Jack, trying to nibble off a piece of a dead hydrangea:

The brown and red purse is off the needles, and now I’m working on a turquoise and white clutch purse from One Skein.  I brought it with me today to work on during lunch, but forgot to bring the pattern, and I couldn’t remember how many increase rounds there were.  Damn.

I’ve starting thinking of the next month as my own version of “Summer of Socks” only instead of summer, it’s the holiday season, and instead of socks, it’s felted purses.  It’ll be interesting to see how many of them I can finish in the next month.  But then, I also want to make items for my b.i.l. and a couple of other people that aren’t purses, so I’ll have to find time for that, too.  For now, though, it’s all purses, all the time!

And to give you something pretty to look at, here’s a picture of my first ever felted purse, made for my mom for the first Christmas after I learned to knit (2004). It was made with Cascade 220, and the pattern was free from the store, but I think they’d downloaded it from the web. It has a magnetic closure.

Starting to feel the pressure.  Not sure what to post today, unless y’all want to hear about my busy day at work or the coworker that pissed me off. Still hard at work on bag #2 (brick red and tan). Freezing in my cubicle, where my heater is doing little to alleve the chill. Almost done with the gazillionth viewing of season seven of Buffy.

I have not looked at any knitting sites or magazines or books today, so I can’t post about that.  Haven’t even logged into Ravelry yet today–horrors! Um, I did take two minutes out of my day to contemplate buying a knitting related Xmas gift for a friend. I showed my current bag in progress to a colleague, and explained what stitch markers are for.

Oo! I lost five pounds in the last week, does that count as news?

Shoot.  This is only going to get harder, isn’t it?

Ok, I just logged into Ravelry, and there was a group invite waiting for me, for a local yarn store.  Hmm, I wonder if the other local stores have groups?

Um, go Patriots!

And now, a picture:

This is the most popular knitting-related image in my Flickr photostream. We now return you to your regularly scheduled surfing.

Last night I finished knitting the first balloon bag (the sparkly blue one). Woot!  I still need to stitch the strap to the bag, and of course do the felting part, but woot! It’s a great start to my belated holiday knitting!

Now it’s Sunday afternoon, and I started the second bag–this one in brick red and tan (Cascade 220) with a tag novelty yarn to carry along–while watching the Patriots game.  (Three minutes left in the third, and it’s not going so well for my boys.)  I’m so glad I organized everything on Friday.  On my way out the door this morning, I didn’t have to make any decisions, I just grabbed a pre-packaged ziploc, complete with all three yarns, the pattern, needles and stitch markers. Hopefully I’ll zip through them all just as quickly.

I’d post a picture of the shiny blue bag, but since it’s a Christmas present for an as-yet undetermined recipient, I’m afraid pics will have to wait.  Instead, here’s a shot of a Little Coco I made last year with Cascade 220 that I’ve only just gotten around to photographing:

As promised, pictures of fun, bright squares, to be used at some future date for a cheery scarf in spring-like colors. The yarn is Plymouth Encore, worsted weight–basically, whatever was leftover from the scrap blanket that I haven’t touched in months. I adore these colors and smile whenever I see them. I just need to pick up some more green, and then I have to decide if I want join the squares together, or border them all in one unifying color before joining. (There are more pictures in my Flickr–just follow the image link to find the photostream to click through.)

In other news, I got started on the Christmas bags last night, and so far I adore this first one.  It’s a deep blue (Lamb’s Pride chunky) paired with two skeins of shiny blue Aura from Trendsetter.  It’s sparkly and shiny and glittery and yes, I know that’s three words that all mean the same thing, but I don’t care, but that’s what it is, to the nth degree.  (Perhaps double stranding the Aura was a bit overkill, but it’s too late now, it’s already half done!) Yesterday I went through my feltable yarns and my novelty yarns and paired complementary colors wherever I could, then assigned each set a pattern based on available yardage. Right now I’m looking at a possible five balloon bags, two little cocos and one clutch, and there’s still an enormous bag of Gjestal in three different colors that I haven’t even touched yet.  It’s nice to have a plan, though–no more wondering what to do next.

That’s all for today.  I hope y’all are having a marvelous Saturday!

For weeks now I’ve been trying to decide what to do about Christmas–do I knit/crochet presents this year? Do I really want to make myself that crazy? And what about the company’s charity auction at the holiday party? What would I do for that this year? I’ve done the scarf and hat thing to death already.

The three boxes and the blue bin in the front are what I just pulled out. The white rolling drawer set and the two boxes in the back are filled with yarn I’ve already photographed and catalogued.

Well, I pulled out four boxes of yarn to photograph and catalogue for Ravelry, and now my path is clear–I have so!much! wool that obviously this is the season of felted purses! Most of the wool is secondhand, passed to me when my friend Kat decided to divest herself of most of her stash, and therefore the colors are not what I’m usually drawn to–lots of earth tones, to be honest. It’s doubtful I’d ever do anything with this wool for myself, so transforming it all to gifts is the only answer.  And maybe I can get some space back in my bedroom in the process.

I’m a smidge undecided on patterns. I have several books with lots of neat felted bags that would teach and challenge me, but really, I just want to make as many purses as I possibly can before December 25 (and really, preferably before December 18th, to give myself some time off to focus on other stressful parts of the holidays, like baking and shopping). This will probably mean using the patterns I’m already familiar with–Booga Bags, Little Cocos, Balloon Bags, and the clutch purse from One Skein.

In other news, I’ve finally photographed the 12 granny squares I’ve finished in the past week and a half, but I’ll need something to post tomorrow, so I’m saving it for then. Hey, it’s something to look forward to, right? Until then, here’s a picture of my brother-in-law playing “zombie” with his and my sister’s kitty, Greta: