Abi Bag

This is my first attempt at creating my own pattern. I had some ribbon yarn called Gedifra Selena. This is a tartan ribbon with frayed edges, that kits up to a lovely thick hairy mat. I first visualised it as a flower pot shaped bag then thought it would be more practical with an oval bottom. In the end I decided to knit it top down with decreases at each end to give the shape you see in the photo. I closed the bottom with a 3 needle cast off.

I had the body complete for a while before deciding on the handles... I had been thinking of bamboo rings, or preferably U shaped handles but I couldn't find the right thing. In the end I tried a 5 stitch i-cord and in a flash of inspiration fed a circular needle through the cord. I was all set to sacrifice a couple of needles for the handles when I picked up some pvc tubing on ebay. The tubing is perfect, it gives the handle a pleasing shape - and stops the handle stretching! I'm no good with zips so I closed the bag with an i-cord loop and a toggle.

Yarn Gedifra Selena ribbon yarn 2 x 50g balls

Needles 6mm double pointed needles or a 6mm circular needle

Notions 1metre of pvc tubing, a wooden toggle, fabric for lining.

Tension - 20 stitches and 26 rows to 4 inches

method -
Bag Body
Cast on 90sts, join in round.
Place markers at the start and middle of the round.
Row 1 Knit
Row 2 Purl
Row 3 Knit
Row 4 Purl
Row 5 Decrease as follows: k5 k2tog k to 7 stitches before mid-point marker k2tog k10 k2tog k to 7 stitches before end marker, k2tog k5
Row 6 Purl
Row 7 Knit
Roe 8 Purl
Row 9 Decrease as before: k5 k2tog k to 7 stitches before mid-point marker k2tog k10 k2tog k to 7 stitches before end marker, k2tog k5
Continue in garter stitch, decreasing on every 4th row until 70 stitches remain.
Shape bottom k2tog k2tog k to 4 stitches before mid-point marker k2tog k2tog k2tog k2tog k to 4 stitches before end k2tog k2tog
Next row Purl
Close bottom of bag using 3 needle bind off. LINK

Handles:
Casting on 5 stitches, make 2 i-cords each 18 inches long.
Feed pvc tubing through the i-cords to give the handles firmness and strength.
Stitch handles to rim of bag


Closure:
Casting on 3 stitches, make an i-cord 6 inches long.
Create a loop and stitch to the middle of the back of the bag. Sew a toggle to the front of the bag.

Line bag if required.

Murder Most Foul

I have read about killing acrylic on knitting blogs - and like felting it is something I have done inadvertently often. Laundry is not my main skill :)

I have heard that pressing acrylic is a way of changing the nature of the knitted fabric to give it a silky draping quality and I was keen to give it a go.

I knitted up a 33 stitch swatch of acrylic double knitting on 6mm needles, the first couple of inches was a vintage bedjacket pattern with a 16 row repeat that finally defeated me after 10 rows, so I decided to carry on with a simple yo lace stitch then I tried a couple of variations on what one person called sloppy stocking stitch (yo every other stitch on the knit row, slip yos on the purl row) this looked remarkably like the old oddpins method from the 80s where you knitted on two differently sized needles. Then I repeated the sloppy and oddpins methods using garter stitch.

Despite the shape of the piece I assure you there were no increases in the piece - the shape comes from the varying tension of each stitch type.

This is the original piece:
It is 19 inches across and the texture is as you'd expect from double knitting.













After killing the yarn with a hot steam iron:
It is a good deal larger and flatter :)
It is now 23" across and much finer and has a drape and a sheen











The oranginess on the picture below is not because I burnt it, but the flash reflecting off the surface - not something that you normally see on an acrylic jumper!
















I'm going to try now and create a shrug/bedjacket loosely based on this pattern but with a bit of killing and holey bits thrown in :) Linda Shoup's Triple S Shrug

Heather's Market Bagg

This is another Knitty project.The pattern is French Market Bag by Polly Outhwaite. It is a felted bag knitted in the round. Apparently using techniques that are a preparation for sock knitting :) knitting in the round, joining, and grafting. It isn't as scary as it sounds, it's a really easy knit, and the felting process conceals any mistakes you make :) such as trying to wrestle with double pointed needles! I am now a devotee of the magic loop :D


The story of the Bagg is to be found here for Ravelers, I recommend signing up for non-Ravelers

Heather's Great Big Little Orange Bird

I decided this year to start knitting Christmas presents. Also I had just been given a lot of wool and wanted to try fulling or felting. My first attempt was a knitted bag based on the pattern A Little Bird Told Me ... by Mags Kandis which appeared in the Knitty webzine in 2008 (Knitty is an absolute trove of free patterns)

The bag turned out a trifle larger than intended because of a last minute change of mind about knitting needles, but I'm pleased with the results.
For any Ravelry members the whole sorry story is available here for any non-Ravelry members I suggest you sign up. It's a marvellous community of knitters, crocheters and weavers.

I want one!

Yesterday the Guardian ran an April Fool story playing on Gordon Brown's (our current prime minister) recent trouble when a political writer revealed that he has a temper.

The essence of the joke is a mock campaign poster by the Labour Party exploiting Gordon's new hard man image and threatening "posh boy" David Cameron (leader of the opposition, who is wealthy and went to the posh school Eton)

The joke grew arms and legs when people started amending the poster on Flickr in the manner of the MyDavidCameron site with the (real) Tory campaign posters

John Prescott who is something of a leading light on Twitter then challenged the Guardian to produce a real Step Outside Posh Boy T-shirt, which they did, and they're running a competition tomorrow to win one of 100 T-shirts.

Today it snowed in London...

...and The Daily Mash in it's own inimitable style reported on the phenomenon:
(BTW - Carlisle is a city in England's frozen North, although this year that should be soggy North)

London Sacrifices Virgins after Centimetre of Snow

The soft South is renowned for coming to a halt as soon as a snowflake hits the ground

I could show you my favourite obsession... I've *NOT* been making a man with blond hair and a tan...

... I've been hatching scooters and hoofers!

I have a weakness for computer games. I can't work controllers and joysticks, I'm too tight for a Wii, (sounds like a continence problem) and I'm not fast enough for shoot-em-ups. However, I have blown hours on various types of solitaire (Pretty Good Solitaire www.goodsol.com 500 types of solitaire and the best) and spent ages playing match 3 games (diamond mine, jewel quest, fishdom) hidden object games and found my personal heaven in Big Fish Games. The only site that (almost) persuaded a miser like me to consider a subscription!

But now Big Fish have introduced a game that has ensured that my every free moment is spent in front of my computer and whenever I am away from it (to work, sleep, etc) I am thinking about it!

Faunasphere!

Faunasphere is a game designed for sad old ladies like me, according to the young guns who write reviews of those expensive console games everyone is being persuaded to fork out for at this time of year. But even those who've reviewed it are positive about it. It is a multi player web based game where the idea is to hatch an animal - a scooter(tortoise), hoofer(horse) or sniffer(dog) send it out into the world to grow, find food, fight pollution, and build a comfortable private world to live in. All the while if you like, you can interact with other players, make friends, and work together.

It has elements that will please various types of player, if you like to blast things the fauna have torches strapped to their back, or round their neck, that shoot out lightning and blast away pollution blocks, and some of those pollution blocks fight back! There are grades of pollution from inert blocks that just go when you shoot them, to nasties that fart on you when you try to kill, them via vileys that shield themsselves so they can overcome you with their fumes, up to the pollution monster itself that doesn't just fart! But if you don't have any aggression to work off you can pootle around the sphere, meeting up with other players, chatting, asking for and giving game tips, digging for treasure, hunting it from specific locations, accepting goals and carrying out specific tasks. If you prefer to use your design and homemaking skills you can design a private paradise for your Fauna to live in. If you are interested in genetic manipulation and breeding for specific traits you can breed your fauna through the generations to design for particular species, colours even eye and tail types. there are currently 12 species of fauna that can be bred from the original 3, and who knows there may even be more! I converted one of my hoofers to a squeaker (lemming) and one of my squeaker eggs hatched into a frog!

As a game it sucks you in, "I'll just play for a few more minutes, till I find this item, till I increase my level, till I see what's around this corner...

It's certainly better at "relieving my t-tension" than Rocky!