that's my bag, man

I found hubby's socks that I started last year and discovered that for some strange reason I had cast on way too few stitches and I need to restart them . . . sigh. I got about 2" of 4x2 ribbing done and put them down. I think I am socked out, for now. Saturday I went to Acorn Street, once again looking for the perfect yarn for daughter's sweater. No luck on that front, but I did manage to come home with yarn for a hat for hubby's aunt and a felted bag pattern. The shop had a sample knitted up and it was so cute, had to have the pattern, this will be my 'holiday gift' pattern this year. Since my mom does a lot of red/black/gray I decided that would be what I would do the bag in, I have a TON of Cascade 220 in varied shades of gray, black, and red in my stash so I wanted to pick up a varigated red/black/gray. I stopped at Village Yarn to see if I could find said varigated yarn . . . nothing in all that beautiful Manos . . . hmmm . . . nothing . . . nope not here . . . not over here either. Darn. One of the wonderful employees said she had used a Noro like that for a project she had done. We looked all thru the Noro, no luck, but she offered to go and look in the back room. Success! The laaaaaast skein. (think Ice Age)

So that night I started the bag, I knit the bottom and on Sunday started up the sides. I decided to use a double strand of the Cascade 220 since it is a lt weight Worsted and that is what the pattern suggested. I dropped one of the strands of the black 220, added the Noro and knitted away blissfully while hubby and I watched SG1: season 1 on DVD (love Netflix). That is until I got here: Well, this isn't the look I was going for . . . shoot . . . ripit . . . ripit . . . ripit . . . Decided this time I would drop both strands of the black 220 and pair the Noro with a strand of red 220:

ah . . . much better. By the end of the evening I was almost done with the body of the bag. Woohoo, gotta love those quick knits.

Mondays my hubby works an early shift (4a to 12:30p) so when he got home he said he would watch the kids and I could go out. Didn't hve to tell me twice! I grabbed my knitting and ran out the door and drove straight to Village Yarn & Tea where I sat and knitted and drank some wonderful Green Pear tea. There I sat, knitted, drank tea and chatted with the gals who work there until they closed at 6pm. (with only occational breaks for yarn fondling) I was able to finish the body of the bag and do the I-cord bind off, I had never done this before and was a bit nervous about it, but it turned out fine.

I'm still working on the I-cords for the handles but here is what it looks like so far: