The Bag of Bags

Surely everyone, the world over, has "the Bag of Bags". It's that plastic carrier bag that contains all the other carrier bags that seem to breed as soon as two of them are left alone together. We decided we were going to do something about this and my mother-in-law set about knitting a bag from strips of plastic:



She put the handles all the way around the bag to give it more strength:



It's been test driven by my sister-in-law and pronounced a success. It doesn't cut the circulation off in your fingers, either. (Always a bonus.)



I'm slightly concerned that the whole thing will disintegrated in a couple of years but then I suppose we'll just knit another one. In fact, MIL has already almost completed her second one - she modified the pattern because the addition of the gussets was "fiddly" (her technical term) and unnecessary.

I have finally reached the right height on the Kauni jumper to start the front neck shaping. I am loosely basing the shaping on a sweatshirt belonging to 'im indoors, which he claims is very comfortable and of a suitable shape and size. I measured the width of the neck on the sweatshirt and discovered the shoulders were eight inches and the neck opening was also eight inches. My gauge is eight stitches per inch, so I'm going to have the shoulders be 64 stitches wide and the neck opening 65 stitches wide (which adds up to 193, which is how many stitches I have on the front.) I left the centre 45 stitches on a piece of thread and cast on ten steek stitches over this area.






I'm going to decrease one stitch at both the front neck edges on every round five times and then decrease one stitch each side on every other round another five times. This should take me fifteen rounds. Then I'm going to do a little bit of back neck shaping (but I haven't done the sums for that yet), knit a few rounds straight and graft the shoulders together (or possibly do a three needle bind off, depending on how I'm feeling). It is my aim that the shoulders should fall just at the end of the pattern repeat. I'm hoping that all my sums will come together.

The Mermaid is only very slightly bigger. I'm hoping to get some pictures to show how I'm fixing the beads on. At first I threaded all the beads onto the yarn but got myself into a fearful tangle and, though I know silk is strong, I was a bit concerned about the beads wearing the yarn because of the constant pushing up and down. Another method needed to be found in order to preserve what little sanity I still retain. This involves a beading needle, a length of sewing cotton and a steady hand - pictures later (when I've had time to grow a third hand to hold the camera.)

The Knitting and Stitching Show

should really be called "The Stitching and Knitting Show" because there was much more stitching than there was knitting. Nevertheless, that didn't stop me (and Ann-at-work, who was acting as my chauffeuse) from having a most enjoyable day.

I promised myself that I wouldn't go mad because, as you know, I have enough yarn to start my own yarn shop as it is. I saw this safety pin with the loops under it and thought it would be ideal for fastening the Kimono Jacket (to replace that hat pin that was forever piercing my attributes). There were hundreds of little charms to choose from but these three express my feelings perfectly.



I had a vague feeling that I might find some lace-weight yarn to make into something or other - I've joined both the Secret of the Stole KAL and the Secret of Chrysopolis. I told Ann-at-work to keep me well away from sock yarn and variegated yarn. Sock yarn is to be avoided because although I like the idea of knitting socks and I like wearing hand knitted socks, I don't actually enjoy the fact of knitting them. Variegated yarn is more or less the same story - it looks lovely in the ball/skein but you really need to choose the project with care - something simple and classic that will showcase the yarn. I mostly knit lace and I have yet to see a lace item in variegated yarn that makes me swoon with delight. If you know of any, send me a link, I'd really like to use variegated yarn for some lace.

Nothing was really striking me. There really was hardly any skinny (technical term) yarn to be had - plenty of frou-frou stuff; plenty of "ecological" cotton (you know my views on cotton - the devil's work); lots of alpaca - not skinny enough for my purposes; plenty of mohair ("What sort of an animal is a Mo?") - again, not really suitable for lace. I was starting to think that the cash would just have to burn a hole right through my pocket when I saw these beads:



which put me in mind of a mermaid.

Now, I'm not a great fan of beads on knitting - I have used them occasionally but I haven't really been bitten by the beading bug. A stole floated into my mind. Some sort of skinny, blue-ish, green-ish, shiny stuff (all technical terms) with a pattern like fish scales and with some beads to add a bit of shimmer.

I bought the beads and then I recalled the Uppingham Yarns stand, where I had seen cones of skinny (tt) silk:



I bought a blue and a green with a view to using the yarn double to make my mermaid dream come true. More of that in the coming days.

When I say skinny (tt) I mean skinny. Here are the two strands of yarn with a strand of sock yarn for scale.



Hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

Skinny yarn calls for skinny needles. I was more than pleased to come across the KnitnCaboodle stand and discover they had HiyaHiya needles.



I think this is the only UK source for these needles, which we have heard all about from our American friends. Everything they say is true - very light, very pointy (tt), uncoated (so no chance of the coating wearing off), very flexible cable, great joins. Best of all? Much cheaper than Addis! Soon to be available in ebony, rosewood and bamboo (but bamboo is nails down a blackboard for me). I'm already test driving these 2mm circs on a swatch (yes, you read right - a SWATCH) for my mermaid dream and there will be pictures of that later.

Just as we sank exhausted in the bar, we were approached by a fellow knitter, who asked "Are you Kate?". She turned out to be Annie of "Up Knit Creek" (still the best name for a knitting blog, ever). I showed off the Kauni to Annie and her mum:



and Annie showed me her purchases (and I'm sure you'll get to read all about it on her blog).



She also made Ann-at-work's day. When I introduced them ("Anne this is Ann. Ann, Anne") she said, "Oh, you're Ann-at-work!" I have not heard the end of it ("I'm famous. Am I as famous as you, do you think? I'm Ann-at-work. I'm famous.")

Speaking of the famous "Ann-at-work", we have finally managed to get the secret item cast-on:



Bet she'll be even more famous now.

Off to dream of mermaids.