Priority Mail

Priority mail from Elann can only mean one thing!

I'm almost through the first ball of yarn on my French Market Bag.

I know, I know. Where's the Booty Bag, you ask? Well, it may wind up in Davy Jones' Locker, matey. The pattern is not a problem. It only took me casting on four times to get the method for doing double knitting wrapped around my brain. Once I got that down, I do have about ten row completed, but to do double knitting you have to knit 1, purl 1 FOREVER! It takes a LONG time.

So for now, with my patience run very thin, I'm working on the French Market Bag. Pattern at Knitty.

Before and After

Here's the before felting picture of my tote bag. It's huge! I really like the colors. And it was all done with yarn from my stash. Wool of the Andes and Patons Wool.

And here's the "after" picture. I've got it stuffed with plastic grocery bags while it's drying. The idea is to have a tote for my laptop for when I need to take it with me. And it's a good fit. I have an IBM Thinkpad and it will fit nicely, including the power supply and maybe even some files. I'm very pleased. I'm also going to enter it in the fair.

Now, I'm done with "fair" knitting. I have a cotton towel I'd like to work on, socks that need to be ripped back past the heel because I didn't make the leg long enough, and the "Pirate Queen Booty Bag."

The weather here in Central PA has just been beautiful. Highs in the upper 70's, low humidity. But it is going to heat up the middle of the week. We got all our air conditioners in place in anticipation. But it's to cool off again before the weekend. Only draw back is it's very dry. The yard is parched. I did some home improvement over the weekend and did some painting in my bathroom. The wood work is now all a nice light blue. The color is called delight. And it is. But painting the baseboard behind the toilet was not a delight.

Box-O-Yarn

My yarn has arrived from KnitPicks! I'm planning felted clog slippers -- I've worn out another pair. And then there's the Pirate Queen Booty Bag purse in red and black for DD. She wanted to know why she needed a booty bag. (12-year-olds just have no sense of humor.) And I picked out some Gossamer in three colors to play with.

We've changed internet providers (my old company isn't going to be providing residential service anymore.) I must say, we switched to Embarq. It was relatively painless, less expensive, and MUCH faster. Now to work on changing over my e-mail. At least I have until the end of July.

Back in business

Now, I'm back in business. The old Fuji camera still works. And I was even able to get my laptop to recognize it and download the pictures. I'm going to try some superglue and duct tape on the Kodak Easyshare. What a pain these digital cameras can be -- don't get me wrong, they are wonderfully easy to use and it's so nice that you don't have to pay all that $$$ to get the photos developed and all. But this is the third digital camera that we've had battery door issues with.

Anyhow, here's a shot of my Garterlac dishcloth. You'll find the pattern here. The border around the edge is my contribution to the pattern. I'll be entering it in the local fair as a set with a towel.

















The towel shown below is just a test drive of the pattern and the yarn. It turned out very nice in person, but the white in the red-white-blue varigated yarn is really cream. So, I'll be keeping the test drive for myself. I'm currently working on a towel that matches the dishcloth. I know there's been a thread on the KnitList over the past week about towel toppers/kitchen towels and the like. Yes, they are an old fashioned thing, but a strategically placed towel is a God send in the kitchen. Plus, this is much nicer than one that's made from the cheapest dollar store tea towel with a crocheted topper made from Red Heart yarn. In this case the entire towel and topper is made from cotton dishcloth yarn.

I even have hot pads on my table that are round dishcloth pattern made from cotton yarn and they are great. They serve as hot pads, placemats, clean up for emergency spills and the like.

Anyhow, I'll keep you posted as to what items I'll be entering in the fair. So far, I have two felted bags, two pairs of socks, a pair of felted clogs, a shawl, dishcloth and dishcloth/towel set. My only goal is to win a few bucks to buy more yarn with.

Pardon the technical difficulties

You'll have to excuse the lack of a photo. The battery door has broken on my digital camera. Seems like that is always the problem with digital cameras. In the mean time, I need to dig out my old digital camera, find some batteries that have a bit of power in them and crank the old thing up. Then I have to find the thing-a-mag-jig to actually get the pictures on my computer. It's always something...