Falling Out of Love

I am rapidly falling out of love with Emma King and her knitted bags. Don't get me wrong - the bags are beautiful; the patterns are well written; they are easy and quick; the yarn, Rowan for the most part, is freely available in my rural backwater BUT on the two occasions I have knitted a bag from this book I have run out of yarn!

I am not a great swatcher. Normally, I just cast on and give it a go. When it comes to a bag I'm even more cavalier - it's not like it has to fit anyone, is it? As long as I have a fabric that appeals I feel as if I'm good to go. However, over the years, I have learned that I am a loose knitter and often have to go down one or two needle sizes to get a suitable fabric. So for both of the abovementioned bags I started with a smaller needle size: in the case of the "Fancy" bag (Clare's "secret thing") I used 3.5mm needles, as opposed to the 4mm needles recommended. The second bag is "Cranberry", a chunky, textured and beaded bag using Rowan "Big Wool" in a bright pink. She says 10mm needles, I'm using 8mm needles. The gauge is spot on and I have still run out of yarn. I shall have to return to my LYS - can the plastic stand it??

I am still progressing on "Birch". I wanted to take some pictures of my progress and talk about paired decreases and how I have changed the pattern slightly and why I think my changes are for the better, but, though the camera has returned from Egypt, together with #1 son and #1 daughter, the batteries just died on me. Yes, I do have spares, and no, they weren't charged. I am new to this digital camera lark! They are charging now, so by tomorrow...

Therefore, I give you The Great Cosmos:



This is from a pattern by Sandy Terp at Moonrise Lace Knitting. It's done in Jaggerspun Zephyr, colour Iris and was great fun to do. It's a beautiful shape, beginning in the centre with a "more than circular" start, the centre section is worked outwards and then you "square the circle". I just love it.

Here it is laid on the (very long) grass:



I had to trample down the grass to get her to lie flat. When 'im indoors returned he thought there had been a herd of woolly mammoths in the garden, or maybe a crop circle had sprung up fully formed. He did, however, take out the lawn-mower the very next day. This is knitting as a behaviour modification tool.

Just to prove that the camera did go to Egypt, here is #1 daughter, looking very Egyptian, on the Nile:



I shan't bore you with the other 90 photographs that came back.