I went to see my gran the day we left for Black Point. She showed me the stunning Kaffe Fasset sweater she is working on and I kicked myself for not having my camera handy. Then she gave me this:

The drill really isn’t a great solution so you can imagine how thrilled I was. I immediately got out the second hank of the main colour for my French Market Bag and wound it up.

She also gave me some recycled 8 ply yarn that I plan to make into a basic sweater of my favourite style - being raglan, 3/4 sleeve, mock turtle neck.

I realise this yarn looks red, it is in fact more of a wine colour but I didn’t think to take a photo during daylight hours so the colours are a bit whacky in the photo…. Last but not least Mary also gave me some garter stitch squares for Isabelle to use as doll blankets:

This new connection with my Gran has really been one of the highlights of taking up knitting for me and I think she is always pleased when someone in the family discovers knitting.

You will recall from my last post before I left Sydney that I had decided to rip out the last 8 rows of increases for my French Market Bag base and reknit straight. I wanted to maintain the visible rim of base colour on the sides of the bag and 200 stitches on larger needles seemed just a little too huge. I did indeed rip out those 8 rows and reknit them straight. I started the main colour and it was all going swimmingly.

It was only after I had knit through the entire first ball of the main colour that I began to wonder if 168 stitches really was enough. I realised that I had not actually measured the base after ripping out the extra increases, which was my last chance to lay it completely flat and get an accurate measurement. I tried to get it as flat as I could, and what I saw was very pretty.

Pretty, BUT…. Isn’t there always a ‘but’? Pretty, but I suspected, now too small. Jesse was horrified when I suggested ripping it out again, with many many more rows to be undone this time (the little gold safety pin you can see in the picture below marks the end of the base, the point to which I would have to rip back). After much agonising I decided to just keep on as I was going. I added the second ball of the main colour and I continued to kid myself that everything was ok for a few more rows.

The thing is that BUT just kept coming back to nag at me whenever I picked up the needles to work on it… But how are the handles going to work with only 168 stitches? But is it really going to be big enough to be useful? But what about that third skein of the main colour that I was sure I needed to make a big enough bag and which I can’t possibly use up at this rate? The buts kept on coming and the bag stopped growing. Then this happened:

This time I measured it. Fourteen and a half inches across. Not as small as I had feared, but not as big as I think it needs to be. New plan. Redo half of the base increases that I ripped out the first time and add 4 rounds of increasing 1 stitch per corner at even intervals through the bag body creating a total of 200 stitches at the top for nice handle placement and a more truly french market basket shape. I have reknit the rest of the base colour and the base is 16 or 17 inches across depending on how I measure it, I will knit the sides to be as tall as they are wide so I will place the increases at 3 inches, 7 inches, 11 inches and 15 inches. This plan still involves finishing in time for christmas, along with the other bag and a half that also need to be finished by the 25th.

I cast on for the base of the French Market bag at knitting class last night and finished it tonight. Working on 7mm Addis one skein of the tartan green produce enough rows to increase to 200 stitches and knit one row more. Had I read the pattern again 30 mins ago I when I was carefully measuring how much yarn I had left and calculating whether I would get to 200 stitches I would have stopped increasing before reaching 200 stitches and started knitting straight. I thought the pattern called for 3 rounds in the base colour after reaching 200 stitches and that one round was not too far off. It actually calls for 9 rows and my base is huge. Did I mention it was HUGE? Having ordered extra yarn to make sure the bag’s height is greater in proportion to the base than the original I don’t want to muck up the base/height ratio now, so I will rip back 8 rows tomorrow and knit straight from there.

Speaking of tomorrow, we are going home to Adelaide tomorrow and I probably won’t be posting much till early next week. In the meantime happy knitting to you, and keep your fingers crossed for me that I can sneak some needles and yarn on to the plane. I just have to figure out what projects to pack now…

ok so I have finished the other handle and as I sat back to look at what I had done I was not pleased. The pale green at one end seemed longer than the other. After much checking and double checking there is no question about it, the handles are wrong. Both of them. One more than the other.

The pattern calls for the handles to be knit in halves and grafted at the center rather than knit as one and grafted to the bag. Still the two halves are mirror images so it should have been simple enough to work out. Or so I thought, but apparently not. I knit the pale green until I had decreased to 17 stitches then changed on the next row to dark green. For the first handle once I passed the mid-line and started increasing to match my decreases I changed colour (back to the pale green) as soon as I had 17 stitches on the needle rather than at the end of the 17 stitch section (ie 3 rows early). The second bag I was clever enough to remember that the decrease to 17 stitches was worked in the pale green and then the switch to dark green was made. So for the second strap I changed to the pale green before increasing to 17 stitches, 4 rows early. Only one row earlier than the first handle, but it seems to have made the difference between noticing the mistake or not.

The question is, will anyone else notice? Jesse reckons they look fine. Felting will change things too. Should I unpick at the colour change, add a few rows of dark, remove a few of pale and graft it back together or should I just leave it well enough alone? So far I have made a habit of fixing almost every mistake I have noticed but I don’t know if this one is worth it, what do you think?

It’s a handle without a bag. After emailing Polly (the designer of the French Market Bag), who was gracious enough to send me a very helpful answer, I decided to order a fourth skein of the Cold Harbour Mill yarn so as to make a taller bag. Even with the extra skein my plan is to use every last scrap of yarn, so I am knitting the handles first and will then knit the body until there is no yarn left. I am finding this yarn quite easy to knit and the colours are lovely. I don’t see myself ordering it again because it doesn’t seem special enough to get from overseas when Jo Sharp yarn is available locally for the same price or less, but I will certainly enjoy using it this time.

Speaking of yarn from overseas reminds me that I never mentioned how much I LOVED using the Lambs Pride Worsted for my Booga Bag. I loved the feel of it and I really like both the colours I have received so far, particularly the Khaki that the guys at Thread Bear chose for me. There was something about the combination of the colour and texture of the Khaki that made it just so comforting to play with and knit up.

The body of Bella is done, handles and possibly even felting to be completed tonight. I am guessing that I have used less than half the ball of yarn Jesse and I wound with the drill and I am not loving it, the winding that is, the yarn is fine. It was all fine and dandy for the first 1/2 of the bag, possibly even two thirds, but suddenly my center pull ball stopped pulling. In the end I dragged a huge tangle out of the middle of my ball and painstakingly untangled it before I could get back to my scheduled knitting. Ever since then I have also had to carefully mind not to create another tangle. The lesson here is that the drill most likely does not belong in my knitting tool kit…While I am sure that better technique feeding the yarn onto the ball could probably eradicate this problem but I won’t be trying again anytime soon. The only yarn I have in need of winding at the moment is the ColdHarbour Mill for French Market Bag #1. I have to decided to deal with this by knitting bag #2 first and then prevailing upon my Gran to wind my ColdHarbour for me (or allow me to do it at her place) when we are in Adelaide next week.

Speaking of the French Market Bags, I have a problem - you see the 4.5mm needles called for in the pattern seem awfully small to me. I swatched the 5 ply yarn I am using for Bella on 4.5mm, 5.5mm and 6.5mm needles and got the best fabric from the 6.5mm’s so it just seems odd to me to knit significantly heavier yarn on smaller needles. What’s that, do I hear you saying “just swatch with bigger needles”? Well I would, BUT the real problem here is that I want my Market Bags as much taller than the pattern as my yarn will allow. It is my intention to knit the handles before starting the body so that I can then knit right to the very last scrap of yarn on the body of the bag. I don’t want to waste any yarn swatching, it’s nto like I can rip it out and reuse it after its gone through the washer now is it…. I can swatch for bag#2 because I can easily get an extra ball of Jo Sharp both quickly and fairly cheaply and I can return it if it turns out I really didn’t need an extra ball after all. Not so the ColdHarbour which has to be ordered from the UK and comes in 100g hanks instead of 50g balls. So even if I swatch and recalculate for the Jo Sharp bag on 6.5mm needles what should I do about the ColdHarbour version? Apparently all yarns felt differently and while I could just assume that if I knit on different size needles to the same pre felted dimensions it would be ok my Bella swatch tells me different - the Bella swatch shrank more the looser the gauge…

I could just knit the ColdHarbour bag on 4.5s as called for in the pattern. My reasons for wanting to use bigger needles are two fold - firstly I liked that there was less stitch definition on bigger needles with my Bella swatch and secondly I am time challenged (christmas is looming) and bigger needles = less stitches = faster project. What would you do?

It was too late to write more last night, but really a drill makes a pretty good yarn winder. Ours does anyway - it can go much slower than either of the mixers, but the biggest plus is that it can go backwards so a mistake feeding the yarn onto the ball is easily fixed. I think we will try it at least once more and see if it saves time without all the mixer disasters slowing the process down.

I went yarn shopping yesterday, as you may have guessed from the hank that got wound last night (which is destined to be a bag for Isabelle btw). While I was there I also bought 6 balls of Jo Sharp DK to make a second French Market Bag. That’s right I am buying yarn for the second bag before even starting the first, but I just had to buy it yesterday, honest. one of the other students at knitting class on Wednesday had a sample of felted Jo Sharp DK and I instantly decided it would be easier to get the yarn for the second bag locally, preferably while it was on sale at my LYS. Which meant dragging Isabelle to the yarn store yesterday…. In the end I wasn’t happy with what I chose so I went back again today, this time with TWO toddlers. I gave them a bag of tiny teddies each the second we walked in the door and came away with this:

This I am happy with. Am I ashamed to have bribed them with chocolate biscuits? Not at all.

There is so much going on today I don’t know where to start.

Pattern: Sophie Bag
Yarn: Cascade 220, colour #9407 (green)
Needles: 6.5mm/40cm Crystal Palace Bamboo Circular, 6.5mm Tulip Bamboo DPNs

Sophie is done and I have reorganised my gallery a little so that she will actually appear at the top of my FO list instead of the bottom. Following on from changing format of the FO page, I have also decided to fiddle about so that recurring projects like wash cloths could appear in both the “Finished Objects” and “On the Needles” lists. Speaking of wash cloths:

The Reverse Bloom Wash Cloth is progressing and I really do hope tonight will be my last night working on it. I think it will be pretty and I will be pleased to give it as a gift to someone but I don’t know if I will be in a rush to make another one soon. I think the thing that is bothering me about the Reverse bloom Washcloth is that the knitting is very simple but the project is rather fiddly. It seems to me that 12 ends to weave into a wash cloth is about 10 too many. I have actually woven the ends already because on such a small project it was a real pain having them tangling up all the time.

The ColdHarbour Mill Aran yarn I ordered has arrived and I am very happy with it. The colours are not what I expected, having far less blue in them than I anticipated but I am very happy none the less. The yarn is lovely and I am really looking forward to knitting it up!

ColdHarbour also sent the colour card I requested. In keeping with their website which claims to be an internet store but has only the names of their yarn colours with no pictures (and requires that you call them to order but doesn’t provide a phone number on the shop page), their colour card doesn’t have names attached to the colours. So now I know there are lots of colours I like, but not what they are called. I can guess of course but what if I am wrong? I am not one of those people who is good at describing colours so I am quite worried about calling up and actually trying to sort out which colour is which over the phone…