Everlasting Bagstopper

I was quite new to the online knitting scene in the summer of 2007 when the Everlasting Bagstopper was published at Knitty.com. Having never heard of Hemp for Knitting or AllHemp6, I still put the pattern on my mental “I wanna knit that” list.

Two years later, I did!

Stretched a bit so you can see it's plenty wide

Of course, I have two skeins of AllHemp6 wound and sitting somewhere in the stash, but when I saw the Sapphire colorway, I knew that’s what I really wanted to use.


I was a little worried the first time I scrunched it all up into a ball that I had put the drawstring in a little too low. It wouldn’t have been a bad thing if I put it a row or two higher up, but it really is fine where it is.

My very favorite sandals included for scale. US 9, Teva Mush sandals!

I found the drawstring at the “good” Joann’s, out by the airport. When I went to weave it in, I decided that if I had a bead that would work, that would make it a little easier to pull the drawstring closed.

I DID have an appropriate bead!

Earlier in the week, I had purchased some navy-with-white-polka-dot grosgrain ribbon for handles for this bag. But at Joann’s, I found what I felt was the PERFECT ribbon for this bag.


It is woven, however, and therefore has a ton of loose threads on the reverse side. So I sewed the 1-3/8” ribbon to a 1-1/2” black grosgrain for the handles. I could have done a better job (witness the slight ripple), but I still like it. All in all, I’m quite pleased with the final effort! In fact, I like it well enough that I’ve already cast on for a second one, which will be a gift.

Everlasting Bagstopper

Pattern: Everlasting Bagstopper from Knitty.com
Size: It’s a bag
Yarn: AllHemp6, 2 skeins
Color: Sapphire
Source: Bloomin Yarns, McMurray, Pa.
Needles: US 5 and US 10.5, both from my KA Switch set
Started: 28 June 2009
Finished: 18 July 2009
Mods: Knit it taller than the pattern called for, but not tall enough that I’d run out of yarn. I was afraid that if I knit all the yarn, it would be whacking my ankles when full. I also cast on using Judy’s Magic Cast On, and picked up the sides of the garter rectangle as I would for a sock toe. That meant that I had many more stitches than the 116 the pattern suggested, but as long as I had an even total number of stitches, it didn't matter.

La Noche de Los Probres

It’s time for my July shipment of the Art Walk Sock Yarn Club!



It’s a monthly-renewal club offered by the incredibly talented Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden



Roxanne picks a piece of artwork every month, then dyes the club yarn based on her interpretation of that piece of art.



This month’s artwork is La Noche de Los Pobres by Diego Rivera



It’s dyed on Roxanne’s Superwash Sock Yarn base, which is 430 yards of 100% superwash merino.



Have a great weekend, everyone!

Flat FO #1

I was at the Lake all of last week. Eight and a half days, to be precise. I didn’t knit a single stitch the whole time I was there.

So what did I do craft-wise while I was up there? I put two of my longest-standing almost-finished-objects to rest.

First, my Picnic Plaid.

I first saw this quilt as a class sample made by Mary Ellen Sakai at Bearly Stitchin, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2004 or 2005. I don’t remember.

I do remember that I first made this quilt as a gift for my best friend, Bill. He tells me that his quilt has a label on the back that says “2005” on it. People, this is why we put labels on quilts!

This was a very quick top to complete and I loved the results when I made it for Bill. On his quilt, I put puppy paw prints all around the border and on all of the stripes. When I visited his house on my trip from LA to Pittsburgh in 2007, I spied his quilt. It was filthy. He was afraid to wash it. I straightened him out, but was happy it was obviously well-loved and much-used!

Anyhoo, shortly after finishing Bill's masterpiece, I decided I needed to make this quilt again, for myself! I used brighter hues of the same colors and quilted spirals in the borders and stippled the plaid stripes in like-colored thread.


So I did! I probably started it some time in early 2006. That’s pre-blog, so I don’t know exactly when I started it. Just a guess. I did decide to leave the white background squares unquilted. Not sure if I’m still in love with that decision, but they’re small enough (about 4”) that they should be fine.


I used Printed Treasures sew-in fabric for the label. Purchased at the J-store. With a coupon. I will certainly purchase again. I doodled up the “artwork” for the label in InDesign on my computer, then printed it out. I think it was a great solution, although it’s obviously a very densely-woven fabric, so it was kind of tough to sew through by hand. Oh, and this was my first label-sewing adventure in quite a while, so I didn’t quite line it up right. It’s a little puffy.


So this was a generally enjoyable project. It took forever to get the binding hand-sewn down, but I’ve been quilting less and less since I moved (I really want to change that!!!), so it kind of makes sense.


But dammit, when I edited this photo, I noticed an unquilted red square. One down from the top on the right. I’ll fix that. Someday.

Beach Glass

After all the storms yesterday/last night, we woke up to this


It was obviously going to be a beautiful day. But Hubster and I had decided that we’d head home around noon, regardless of the weather. He offered our house for a work mini-retreat tomorrow (yes, he checked with me first!), so we didn’t want to be rushed while getting the details taken care of for tomorrow.

So I woke up this morning, got mostly packed to go home, and headed for the beach. As you can tell in the above picture, the waves were significantly lower today, which led me to believe it would be a good beach glass day. I had no idea how right I was.

After a 90-minute walk on the beach (and let me tell you, my knees and ankles are grouching at me about that tonight!), I had as much glass in my pocket as I’d collected in the week to-date. Even though my “standard” for the day was that anything I picked up had to be bigger than a nickel or not clear/white glass.

Here’s the weirdest thing I found:



If your name is R, and you lost your bier stein overboard in Lake Erie, I think I have its handle. Sorry about that!

And the whole haul:


This isn’t the best photo (it's dark now, or I'd re-shoot), and you can’t really tell how huge those bottom few pieces are. I’ll just clarify that I brought home FOUR pieces of glass that are too big for me to close my fist around while they’re in the palm of my hand. One is obviously 1/4 of the bottom of a beer bottle, and the other three are all slightly bigger. Unbelievable.

Someone asked if I have plans for all this beach glass. I don't. I just love collecting it and will figure something out later.

We’re back in the ‘Burgh (and oh, yeah. It’s our anniversary. Kinda forgot about that, but I’ve been married to the Hubster for six years now!). Don’t know when I’ll be headed back up to the Lake, but I will be scheduling those last 12 days of vacation very shortly!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Ketchup

Did I mention the big scandal at the July 4th celebrations up here? The Women's Club sells donuts, pop and hot dogs beginning at 9 am. Remembe,r the bulk of the population up here is from Pittsburgh. Someone bought ketchup for the hot dogs that wasn't Heinz! Oh, the scandal! ;-)

I've been lax in sunset-posting the last few days. Here are the highlights.

Thursday

Pretty boring. Very little cloud-wise

Friday:

This is kind of orange, but I liked it with the silhouettes of the kayakers and swimmers


Better colors

Yesterday was a better sunset, It was a very calm day and we had some cloud cover in the afternoon that resulted in good cloud colors at sunset.

Today, we woke up to rain, which turned torrential. We had a little bit of sun in the afternoon, but then it was impossible to miss the next storm making its way in to shore.

By the time "sunset" came around it was raining again. We're headed home mid-day tomorrow, so it'll be a while before the next batch of sunset photos. Hope you've enjoyed!

Average Joe’s

Quite the boring day today. My motivation to work completely deserted me. Gee, wonder why that is? Hmmm …

Since it is, after all, WiP Wednesday, here’s what I’ve been working on

Halfway home!

After finishing the Plaid quilt on Monday, I’ve been diligently working on my Pineapple quilt that has just needed some hand-sewn binding for about a year. Two days of chipping away and I'm halfway there!

I also took an hour-plus walk on the beach and did pretty well in the beach glass department

My pocket was awfully full!

We had a decent sunset



And the colors were great about 45 minutes later as well



Here’s hoping I can get a little bit of work done tomorrow. That would really come in handy!

Pretty Pictures

It was not a beach day today. High of 60 degrees, overcast, windy ...

But who cares when you can get sunset pictures like this?













The right-hand edge gets chopped off on the horizontal photos, but if you click, it'll take you to my flickr set. Enjoy!

Long Weekend Wrap

Hubster and I didn’t have to work on Friday, but we did have a wedding to attend, so we spent the day readying the house to be empty for a week and headed out for the wedding of a friend around 4:30 pm.

The 5:30 pm ceremony was at St. Stanislaus Kostka in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.

Pretty stained glass!

Nifty altar!

We then guided some out-of-town friends up Mt. Washington to the Le Mont for the reception

Too bad it was overcast. Always a great view from Grandview Avenue!

We left the reception around 11 pm, just minutes after the first dance was completed. We got to the Lake around 2 am (no pictures of the trip or arrival. I drove, Hubster slept!)

Despite the extremely late arrival time, we hauled our sorry butts over to the Community Center for the morning’s holiday activities.

Someone brought a really old limo

One family made a “float” honoring Iwo Jima. I have no idea why the year is (drastically) wrong.

Rackety Packety (a cottage across the street) was as creative as always!

Kids rode on the fire truck

And followed on their bikes. I’m showing this photo mostly because my new car is pictured on the right-hand side of the frame!

We even had a sunset on Saturday night!



Sunday was another beach day, and I kept working on hand-sewing down the binding on a quilt that has otherwise been finished for almost two years

Finally finished!

Today, I worked for a good chunk of the morning while watching the Tour de France, and sewed down the last yard or so of binding on the above quilt. And as a bonus, we had another decent sunset!


That’s about it around the north branch of Chez DPUTiger. I have another queen sized quilt to finish with binding, then if I still have time up here, I brought plenty of knitting. Actual machine sewing will commence when I return to the ‘Burgh.

Hopefully, all of you had great weekends as well!

Yarn Pr0n Friday!

You all know that Roxanne over at Zen Yarn Garden is my very favorite yarn pusher. Sadly, recent developments mean that I’m probably going to have to drop out of one of her clubs. Hey, it’s how I’ll be saving my pennies to re-up for the Rockin’ Sock Club and Fiber Baristas for 2010!

Anyhow, this club is her Colour Burst club. It uses non-sock yarn bases, so we get everything between sport weight and worsted.



This month’s offering is her Gemilicous Sport base yarn.



Colorway is named “Rugged” and I really like it.



It’s 250 yards/4 oz of 100% Superwash Merino



To all of my American friends, have a wonderful holiday weekend! We’re attending a wedding today, then driving to the Lake. Nothing quite like the 4th of July at Van Buren Point!

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Hey! WiP Wednesday on Thursday!

Not much exciting going on here. I have accepted delivery of my shiny new Rav-4 (love it!!) but don’t have any pictures yet since it’s been raining.

I’ve been doing just a little knitting. My Everlasting Bagstopper is flying along. Not surprising since it’s a pretty simple knit



Not bad, considering I cast on Sunday night! It’s going to be one of the three Knit-a-Longs at Bloomin Yarns, starting next week. Store employees should get a head start, you know!