My version of the Vintage Bubble Bag

I have a hard time following a recipe without adding, changing, tweaking, so why should knitting patterns be any different?

I bought the Pursenalities book recently. Thursday, when it was time to go off to my knitting group, I had no idea what I was going to take with me to knit, so I grabbed the book, some yarn and this is what I came up with.

I used Lamb's Pride worsted weight (Aztec Turquoise--2 skeins) instead of the Cascade 220 called for. Then, instead of the Noro Silk Garden, I used Lion Brand Landscapes(Pastel Meadow--4 balls). I'm quite pleased with the results.

Besides changing both yarns, I also made it a bit shorter, knitting only 10" instead of 12" before decreasing. As you can see, I also added a ruffle along the bottom of the garter stitch section. If you like this look, here's what I did:

Using solid color, double strand, (my Lamb's Pride worsted)
Pick up along bottom of garter stitch edge, 68 stitches.
Knit one row even.
Knit into front and back of each stitch, 136 stitches.
Knit one row even.
Knit into front and back of each stitch, 272 stitches.
Knit one row even.
Change to single strand of contrasting color (my Lion Brand Landscapes)
Bind off using contrasting color.

I think I would have liked the ruffle a row or two longer, or maybe not quite so ruffled, so maybe next time I will knit 2 or 3 rows after the first increase, and then knit into the front and back of every OTHER stitch and knit 2 or 3 more rows even. Who knows...I like to play around!

Oh, it's always SOMEthing, isn't it?

I got up this morning feeling pretty darned good, due to the fact that I had 9 hours sleep, catching up nicely after the night before, when I had gotten less than 4 hours worth...

Just after Jake got on the bus, I came back and was checking email. I heard a big crash upstairs. Went up to find Kaitlyn's dresser tipped over. Also on the floor were her TV, VCR, DVD player, etc. The TV doesn't work now, the VCR and DVD player seem to be ok, but I haven't checked them out that well yet. I think the dresser is ok (we just bought it about 2 months ago)

The worst thing though, the dresser fell on MY laptop that she took upstairs to do homework on last night. It's toast. I'm pissed. I bought that laptop with some savings bonds that my grandma had bought me through the years, and I received after she died. It was special to me.

I'm thinking Kaitlyn probably left several of her top drawers open, which caused it to be unbalanced and with all that weight up there....CoCo probably jumped up there and that was all it took.

I have to call the insurance co and see if our homeowner's will cover any of it

CRAP CRAP CRAP!

Life goes on....

We're trying to get back into our routine around here....catching up on a lot of things that got ignored and pushed aside during the 2 weeks we lost between hospital visits, funeral arrangements and plain "not feeling like it".

Kim and I finally started on the wedding invitations last night. She's upset because she ordered them before she and Drew knew they'd be moving, so the response cards and return address on them are wrong. We made up some labels to put over them, but labels on the wedding invitations just doesn't sit well with her. It was either that, or get them reprinted (NOT!). So she has to get over it and use the fact that they have a brand new house as a consolation prize.

Meanwhile the shower is just 2 weeks away. ACK! I'm not ready!

Jake's baseball opening day is today. I'll be sure to get some pix of him while his uniform is still in pristine condition. Jake had his 8th birthday last weekend in the midst of all our turmoil. It was nice to focus on his special day and just let the kids be kids for a couple of hours. He had 6 of his classmates come over for pizza, cake and ice cream, and some good clean fun. Mike took the boys outside and hit balls for them to field, they played kickball, ran races, and just had a blast.

I'm working on several new knitting designs and hope to have both of them ready very soon. I'm seriously considering submitting one of them to Knitty. Cross your fingers that it gets picked! That would be so awesome! It's been hard finding time to get much knitting done lately. Hopefully I can find a few spare hours here and there to get things finished up and submitted.

The weather continues to be wacky. Today was the first day in a long time that there was not frost when I got up. I was able to throw the windows and doors wide open this morning and boy was that nice. Considering....it snowed again on Tuesday. Yup, in May. Granted, it was only for about 10 or 15 minutes, but it was most definitely snowing. That had BETTER be the last of it!Anyway, the weekend is shaping up nicely. It's in the 70s and I'm loving it.

Off to hear the crack of bats against balls, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the hot dogs....oh, I got carried away...we're just playing at the middle school fields, not Comerica Park (Gosh I HATE that every sports stadium name now has to be an advertisement. Whatever happened to Tiger Stadium??? Comerica's people are not playing ball...the Tigers are!)

Sad

We've had a death in the family. We're still kind of numb. I don't feel like much of anything is worth blogging about. Maybe in a few days..........

7 DAYS TIL MAY?????

This is what late April in Michigan looks like this year. Keep in mind that a mere 4 days ago it was 84 degrees. I just took my trusty ruler outside and measured the snow that piled up on our table outside and there is 4.75" of the white stuff. (Later in the day....now closer to 7" and still coming down....)

WHAT THE HECK?

Yes, I know. This is Michigan. Yes, I know. I have lived here my entire life. I am quite familiar with the ol' saying....

This is Michigan...you don't like the weather? Hang around 5 minutes...it will change.

I have seen snow flurries in May. I have seen some of our biggest snow storms come through in April. But each year when the 80 degree weather hits and stays around for a few days, the grass is green and people are mowing it, the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, you tend to think that maybe JUST MAYBE this year will be different. But no. Reality hits. And stinks.

At least I can wear my wool socks a few more times.

Lots going on

Just a quick post to catch up a bit. Time and energy are in short supply at this moment. My MIL was taken to the hospital Wednesday morning and we have been back and forth (45 minute drive each way) several times since then. I'm emotionally exhausted, as well as lacking enough sleep. However, she is improving so that's a good thing.

On the knitting front:

My 4 pieces of socks have become a pair of completed socks. It took me 2 hours to graft them, but it was well worth it. They are divine.

The Green Cotton Fleece Cable purse is done, sewn together, and in need of a lining. Photos to follow. It's cute!

I'm working on the last of the facecloths for Kim's shower. I am going to need a few more bars of soap to go with them, and I am looking for some appropriate little soap dishes.

I have a couple new designs in the works, which is really fun. Sales of the Panes Bag are more than I anticipated and I'm having a ball with this whole idea of being a designer. In the past week I have emailed PDF versions of Panes to Australia and Norway. They are now for sale in 3 LYS, with more to come. I'm actually going to have to get more copies printed. Who knew?

Our Thursday night knitting group (we've named ourselves the BeeGees.... BGs... Borders Girls)continues to be a source of great entertainment, comraderie, etc. I so look forward to it each week.

That's all for now. I'll try to get some photos posted soon.

There it is! -------------------->>

It's for sale!

This is cool!

I'm excited! I'm geeked! I'm a designer!

After about 3 months of knitting, composing, arranging for test knitters, tweeking the pattern, etc, I finally got my pattern printed, copies made of the photo, inserted them into the sheet protectors, and it's official! My first pattern design is for sale!!


Here is a better photo of the bag, as the pattern is now written. It has a round bottom and a drawstring top. I'm calling it the "Panes" Bag because as I started knitting it, the pattern looked like window panes to me.

My test knitters did a slightly different version...a little bit shorter with slightly different pattern repeats and a slight change to the bottom circle. They are all really different from each other and all came out really great. You can see Jane's version on her blog. Also seen there are my first version (the one with purple as its main color) and the one my sister Diane did (the black/Kool-Aid colors one with the cool handles!) I also have photos of one that my friend Deb did, and will be posting them all together in a gallery.

Anyway, this morning I took a handful of the patterns up to the yarn store where I work, priced them, and put them in the binder with the other patterns. I feel so special :-)

I am going to set up a separate page to sell them online, where you can buy the pattern with a paypal payment and I will email you a .PDF file containing the pattern and photo. In the email will also be the other photos from my test knitters, before and after felting photos, etc. I hope to do this in the next day or two (or three). If you prefer to buy a hard copy version rather than downloading it and printing it yourself, I can certainly do that too. Email me if you'd like one.

I am currently working on a shawl pattern done in Noro Blossom. Hopefully it will not take me as long to work out the kinks this time, now that I have a little tiny bit of experience.

Catching Up

Wow, lots to catch up on! Things have been pretty crazy since I got back from my trip to visit Diane, but now the kids have gone back to school and I have a minute to breathe!

First of all, the trip was SO much fun. Unfortunately it went by much too quickly, but boy, did we cram in some fun!

I got in about 10 am on Friday in Omaha. We quickly started moving around the city trying to get to all the places on our list. We hit several yarn stores, Mangelsen's craft store, a couple bead stores, etc. At String of Purls I found some Noro Blossom #5 that I had been looking everywhere for! I was so happy....all day I kept saying (in a little sing-song voice) "I got Blossom #5!" to the point where I'm sure I was getting pretty annoying. Anyway, they said they had been waiting a year and a half to get more of that in, so I guess I was in the right place at the right time. I started another shawl like the one I gave mom for her birthday, adjusting my design a bit from the first one. I really LOVE the Noro Blossom. It's so fun to knit with....seeing what color is going to show up next in the skein, and all the colorful little slubs that are spun in too.

We shopped so much that it was 9:30 by the time we finally got to have dinner (which was at HuHot in Sioux City, IA on the way "home" to Vermillion, SD). I love Mongolian Barbecue, and I was so hungry so it really hit the spot. By the time we got to Diane's house it was about 11 pm. They are in the Central Time Zone so to my body it felt like midnight. I had gotten up at 4:30 am to get to the airport on time, so that was quite a long day, but VERY much fun!

Oh, I should mention that when I landed in Omaha the pilot announced that it was 36 degrees, drizzly rain, and the high that day was going to be 40. Oh grand, the same crap I left at home....

However, Saturday dawned a brighter and warmer day...Easter Sunday was glorious, Monday and Tuesday got better and better and were in the 70s. LOVED that weather. We've had an especially snowy winter this year so I was really needing to experience some spring weather. But, all good things must come to an end. Tuesday night a line of thunderstorms blew in and the rain stuck around for my departure. It was in the low 40s as Diane drove me back to the airport.

While I was at Diane's we did a lot of knitting. She was working on test-knitting my first soon-to-be-printed pattern, and we put our heads together with Queen Kahuna's Crazy Heels and Toes book and taught ourselves how to do Toe-Up Socks. The funny thing was that I had brought along my Trekking XXL socks that I started months ago, Cuff-Down, and had frogged the heel area about 3 times. Instead of continuing down those socks, I broke the yarn, and started Toe Up and here they are ready to be joined together. I wonder if this is the only pair of socks out there that has been knit CD/TU on the same pair. I do tend to do things my own way LOL!

Cuff Down Meets Toe Up



We both decided we love Queen Kahuna's methods and sock knitting will be much more enjoyable now. I'm glad to have gotten Diane off the DPNs and onto the Magic Loop method, doing BOTH socks at once. There's no going back now, Diane. Toss those porcupines!!!!

Another thing we did that was so much fun was get together with Diane's Stitch 'N Bitch group on Monday night at the home of one of the members (THANKS SANDY!) for pot luck dinner, dessert (and wine). I was teaching the ladies how to do the knit/beaded bracelets, so the wine mixing with bitty little beads and #0000 knitting needles...well you get the picture. They did really well though, and I think everyone enjoyed learning how to do the bracelets. You can see a few pictures on Jen's blog by clicking on the links in the paragraph next to the bead tray photo. I wish someone had grabbed her camera and gotten her in one of the pictures! Sorry Jen!

It was really nice meeting all the ladies in Diane's knitting group. I had heard a lot about them and was glad to put faces with the names. I know she really enjoys getting together with them.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. Lots of knitting, lots of good food, lots of good fun. I just wish we didn't live so far apart and could do this all the time. Sniff....

Oh I'm Leavin' On A Jet Plane....

I do, however, know when I'll be back again....Wednesday evening.

I'm leaving early tomorrow morning to visit my sister for the better part of 6 days. I'll be arriving in Omaha at about 9:40 and we'll be visiting 3 yarn stores and the HUGE Mangelson's craft store. Mongolian BBQ will be for lunch or dinner. Then we'll drive back to Vermillion, SD where Diane lives and have lots of sisterly/knitting time together.

The current newsletter for the shop has gone in the mail with the upcoming classes for the next 3 months. I am teaching several new and FUN classes this time around. A beaded belt knit with Berrocco Suede or Noro Daria. A beaded bracelet knit with #0000 needles and metallic thread. The Baby Ugg Boots. Some techniques classes (lace knitting, cables, etc). But the most fun of all, the knitted sandals class. I've had the sample pair in the shop for a couple weeks now and they are a hit! I've been trying to get a photo posted here because they are really cute, but I can't get it to upload. So it will have to wait.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter and if you are travelling, have a safe, fun-filled trip!

3 new books

Like I need more knitting books. Yeah, right. Sure. Just try to convince yourself, Trish.....

Last week at our Border's get-together, I finally spent the gift card I got from Kaitlyn for Christmas. I had looked at the knitting books before, but just couldn't make a decision. Kim had a gift card to spend too, so we browsed together. I ended up getting Knit and Crochet with Beads and KnitLit (too) : Stories from Sheep to Shawl . . . and More Writing About Knitting. I had read the first KnitLit book last year and really enjoyed the stories. I will probably end up adding that one to my knitting bookshelf at some point too. What I really wanted to get was 25 Bags to Knit: Beautiful Bags in Stylish Colors but Borders didn't have it. I ended up buying it at the shop when I was at work on Tuesday. There are some really cute purses/bags in this book. I haven't knit any that haven't been felted so I wanted to try a couple unfelted versions. I think I'm going to have quite a collection of them in a short period of time!

Wowsa!

Today my blog turned 7,000. Holy cow. I hope you all are enjoying your visits. I sometimes wonder if I really have anything interesting to say. Who are these people who stop by and peer into my little corner of the knitting world?

Let's see....what is NEW in this little corner???

I finished up the Sheep Tote classes last week (photo in earlier blog entry) and everyone did a great job. It was interesting to see how all the different colorways of Plymouth Outback felted (all the students except one used the Outback) Several ladies chose to not do the needle felted sheep. One did needle felted flowers instead, using some roving and then some pieces of her yarn for stems and leaves (VERY cute and so creative). Another lady crocheted a really cute flower in the same yarn as her bag, felted it slightly, and put it on the side of the bag. Also a nice creative alternative. We really had a lot of fun in that class. I just love getting to know the knitters over the course of a few weeks. There are conversations that happen that give you a glimpse into their lives that you don't get when you are just ringing them up at the register or helping them pick out yarn.

This week I started teaching the Baby Surprise Jacket class again. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't crazy about teaching this one over again. I didn't mind the mittens, I didn't mind the clogs, but the prospect of this repeat was not thrilling me. However, I will also be the first to admit that it was perfectly fine, and once again I am blessed with great ladies to teach...funny, personable, and it just makes me realize how blessed I am to have this job (and I use that word VERY loosely because not ONCE has going to the shop felt like WORK to me...it's always playtime in my eyes).

I relish the fact that I get to use my creativity, and get paid for it. The creative juices are REALLY flowing these days. The other morning a new purse design came from the dream I was waking up from. It was so clear to me in my dream, and while it is an unusual shape/style, and will take some playing around with to get it right, I am determined to make it happen. If you dream it, you can knit it. Right?

Speaking of designing...I am coming closer to the point where I can get my first pattern printed and hopefully on the market. I have lined up 4 test knitters to make sure the pattern is clear, free of errors and confusion, and contains all the information necessary for a frustration-free knitting experience. Some patterns are just not well written at all, and I don't want anyone to feel that way about something I've written. So far one of my TK-ers has finished her version of my bag and I love it! She had some suggestions for the pattern which I implemented. TK-er #2 found another area of confusion today and it was just an oversight that I quickly fixed. My sister Diane is going to start knitting hers when she gets back from LONDON (where she flew off to this afternoon til Sunday....lucky duck). Since I'll be visiting her in only SIXTEEN DAYS I can see her progress for myself. She also has enlisted one of her S & B-ers to test knit for me too.

When the pattern is ready to be released, I'll make a big stink about it right here :-)

I also recently designed a shawl pattern (using the Noro Blossom that I recently found hiding in the back of the bin). In the coveted #5 colorway. This stuff is out of stock EVERYWHERE and I really do want some more!

Anyway, the shawl turned out quite lovely, and I was truly amazed at all the blues, purples, and greens that showed up as I was knitting since the hanks look so predominantly PINK. I did find after finishing it and blocking it, that there were 3 things in particular that I would have done differently. If I wasn't afraid of ruining the yarn by frogging after it had already been wet blocked, I might have torn it apart and made the changes. But I decided to leave it as is. I wore it to work last week and Vicky liked it a lot. She said she definitely wants me to write up the pattern for this one too.

Well that gave me the idea that I'd better make another one, but with the changes I have in mind. But no more #5 to be had anywhere! Then, my mom decided she would like to have a shawl like this, and because I was going to be knitting another one anyway, and who needs 2 (almost) the same, I gave her the beautiful #5 Blossom shawl as her birthday present. I hope she enjoys it. I'll have to visit it once in a while.
Now I am just trying to decide which color I'm going to choose for the next one. I keep inspecting the hanks at the shop, trying to figure out what color stripes might burst from them unexpectedly. I guess that's going to be part of the fun. So, soon you'll be seeing 2 patterns designed by me. I'm so excited! I really didn't think I had it in me to design knitting patterns. (I have a couple more ideas floating around in my head...besides the dream bag...hey! I think that's what I'll name it!)