OK, this is pathetic

I'll admit it. But I finally have found where all those old pics are that were downloaded from the camera! Oh, happy day. So here I sit at the computer on this gorgeous September day in the desert with the intention of getting all that old stuff blogged about and bring this beast up to the present.

The problem is I just knit too much, and if I have spare time that is what I am doing. So let's go back to winter of 05/06...

Here is the bag I did in Noro Kureyon for a gift exchange our book group does. It was hotly contested. The button is one that I found in one of the huge bins of buttons that I was given by a woman that I happened to meet in the Dr's waiting room as I was knitting away. I think it really suits the feel of this bag.

OTOH, in the gift exchange I ended up with... Oh, something I really didn't want and someone else did, so I gave it to her to keep.

Oh heck, let's just get all the bags out of the way, shall we? Or at least all the bags that I made before 4-22, when these pics were downloaded. Someday I may even find the photos that came after that...
This bag is one that I made for my sister as a birthday gift last February. The little dots you see are recycled glass beads that I worked into the bag as I knitted. After felting it takes a little work to go around and pop them all up to the surface of the fabric, but one of the cool things about these is that when you look into the inside of bag, the beads act as little stained-glass windows that let a glow of light into the bag. Again, as you may have guessed, I used Kureyon for this bag.
Ok, I have to admit that it is ticking me off that each new photo I add automatically appears at the top of the page, so that I have to keep dragging it down in this little tiny window, paragraph by paragraph until I get it where I want it to be. They are also taking about a month each to upload to blogger, so in the meantime I go look out the window and watch them unload our new neighbor's stuff from the truck. Last time all the workers were lounging about in the neighbor's patio chairs in the shade, so instead I went and finally removed the dead flowers from the vase of dead flower water that has sat on the dining room table a few days past their sell-by date. Hopefully that will take care of the, um, 'dead' smell in the room. I'm pretty sure it's not me...

But anyway, that last bag is one that I made for my cousin Colleen. She is a horsewoman extraordinaire, I'm not sure if she has functional legs, and if she did have, would she opt to use them if there is a horse at hand? This bag reminded me of Navajo blankets, and so by a very circuitous route it seemed right for a horsewoman. I loved it so much that afterwards I made myself THIS bag... (ok, wait while it uploads and see if we can check out any more of the new neighbor's belongings. Being the nosy neighbor in the house with the big windows sure is fun!)

I decided when making this bag that I wanted an edge around the opening to make it easier to open the bag with that fierce snap closure, without looking like one was wresting with it. Unfortunately, my single crochet edge turned out much too floppy for the rest of the bag, making the bag opening huuuuge. Hmmm... Ok, so I took some suede thong I had and laced it around the top edge of the bag, gathered it in a bit and Voila! It looks like I MEANT to do that! I think. I love the colors of this yarn. Noro yarns are just such a delight to knit with, if only to experience the color changes as they come along.

Ok, bear with me, I only have a few bags to go for late winter and spring...

This bag was done for one of the women in book group, who loved the Holiday exchange bag and wanted one made for another book groupee. I know this will sound like I need to get a real life, but to me the bags kind of tell me what they want to be when they are finished, and these colors just reminded me of circuses and pennants, and so that is how it came to be done with points. When I was finished with the bag I brought it into the LYS where I teach to drop it off for the woman to come fetch it. Apparently I could have sold the darned thing several times over, and because of that bag I wrote up a pattern for adding points to bags, because it seemed the easiest way to answer the question of how to do that for everyone who saw this bag and liked the idea.

I do, BTW, knit with yarns other than Kureyon.

Next and final bag of this post-


This bag was one that I made with a tweedy yarn. Do yourself a favor, don't try to felt tweedy yarn. It was a beautiful tweed from Rowan, I think , and it had a lovely mix of fall colors. It was so gorgeous to work with. Unfortunately, after it was felted it came out looking like I had just skinned a bear and tried to make a bag from the pelt. It was fugly. All the colors were lost and it was just a thick, brown felt. So I puzzled over it for a long time, and then finally started working this design on it by needle felting. It took a couple of months to finish, working a bit at a time. My Mom saw it at Thanksgiving and loved it, so it was one of her Christmas presents. When I teach two-dimensional needle-felting I take it in to show my students, and tell them that this was my first needle-felting project. Which it was.