Granny Square tote bag is done!

Omigoodness!  How cute is this!  And, how glad am I that I had enough for TWO totebags.  One for me (natch!) and one for my lovely customer in Australia.  I even have enough blanket leftover to make some messenger bags.

Here's the process.  The first step is cutting the afghan up into totebag sizes.  Here's a picture of the pieces as I cut them.  I had enough for two of these cross-shaped pieces.  The narrow strips going out each side become the sides of the bag. 

The most boring part was to very carefully, in excellent light, snip the yarn connecting the different sections together.  I wanted my edge to be just the squares themselves.  No scalloped edge or other connecting threads.  Doing this for both bag pieces plus the leftover squares I'm going to use for messenger bags took FOREVER.

Once I had the threads snipped, I laced up the sides of the bag.  I've done this on my machine before, but the wear and tear sewing on such thick fabric is not worth it.  I couldn't get a good picture of the lacing, but it came out nice enough that I kept it on the outside, finished side of the bag!

So, now I have my bag form.  I then made my lining pieces including one pocket inside.  I also sewed the straps on by hand.  Now to the machine.  I did break two sewing needles between the two bags, but I was able to sew in the lining on the machine.  I sew right sides together and then flip the lining inside the bag and top stitch the fold.  Then I sew the bottom of the lining last from the right side.  This makes for a beautiful finished edge, but is rough on such thick fabric.  I think for the messenger bag I will make a finished lining with a pressed top edge and just sew the finished lining into the bag.  Easier on my machine.

Here's a shot of the lining.  Valori Wells "Hoot."  Very colorful with fanciful trees and flowers plus a couple of birds thrown in.  The pocket is just plain brown.  I didn't want any pattern to compete with the print.

All in all, a great project.  I'm only sorry I had the afghan for 6 months before actually doing it!

What?!! Another purse?!

During the winter months, I live in long-sleeved t-shirts and sweaters.  I have lots of T's but noticed this fall that most of them were too short.  I wish I could say I got taller, but this is not the case.  I think it's a combination of laundry shrinkage and a change in t-shirt styles to a longer silhouette.  Anyway, many of my shirts were a little skimpy in the length.  And, not having the long lean figure of which I have always dreamed, any exposure (either perceived or actual) is definitely not the way I want to go.

So, I replaced a lot of shirts this past fall.  Gap, Target, Kohl's, etc.  And, I went through my drawer and pulled out the offending shirts and stacked them up to go to Goodwill.  That's when I noticed how nicely they all went together.  I had about 6 shirts -- chartreuse, grey, mauve, dusty blue, pale blue, and a soft brown.  What to do...

I did some research on line and on Etsy to see what other people were doing with old shirts.  There are lots of creative people out there making jewelry, clothing, and accessories out of old stuff.  Many are knitting with old shirts.  They cut the body of the shirt in a spiral, creating one long piece of "yarn."  So, I got out my scissors and started spiraling.  That's when I discovered that cutting up a shirt takes a LONG time.  I think it took about 20+  minutes per shirt to get it all done.  And I still have the sleeves and above the armhole pieces!  Still, I perservered and had a large pile of rolled t-shirt yarn.

I did a guage swatch on size 15 needles.  Two stitches to the inch!  Wow!  So, I sketched out a simple bag, cast on, and off I went.  I usually start with the bottom of the bag, knit back and forth.  Then I pick up all the way around and knit a tube for the rest of the purse.  I like shaped bags so I usually decrease a few times before getting to the top.  But, I always leave the top 2 inches straight so it's easier to line the bag.  The photos here show the bag before lining.  I purposely left all the knots and tails to the outside.  It actually looks quite cute!  I'm thinking about stringing some beads on there but the bag is already kind of heavy.  Cotton is not a lightweight fabric!

For the lining, I had the perfect Amy Butler fabric.  I found it in my embroidery/beading cupboard when I was cleaning it out.  I had bought it to go with a project from my sewing group but never did anything with it.  The color match is unbelievable!  So, free yarn from the t-shirts and free fabric from the supply cupboard.  Okay, I had to pay for the initially, but I love using things on hand rather than buying new.  Naturally I had interfacing down in my newly organized Purse Supplies bin.  I also had a cool leather belt purchased at a thrift store.  That would be my handles.

I lined the bag, added the handles and am all done.  Naturally, I have some odds and ends left.  I looked back through my t-shirts and found a couple more that are too short.  Now that I know what I'm doing, I'm going to make a second bag.  A little bigger this time and a little less garter stitch.  I'm thinking all grey and oatmeal on the top half and then all the colors at the bottom.  I'll post pictures when it's done.

I could look at this all day long...

When we last spoke, I was in the midst of some supply cabinet re-org.  I have completed the large cedar closet and the small cabinet that houses my beads, embroidery supplies, and some miscellaneous knitting stuff like my swift, ball winder, etc.  This was all an evasive maneuver, though.  The really task ahead was The Yarn (cue Beethoven's 5th, here).  The cedar closet was definitely a big job, but at least the stuff was all inside the closet to begin with.  The yarn...not so much.

I have been knitting since my junior year in college, circa 1984.  I visited my grandma that Christmas.  We were celebrating my grandparents' 80th birthdays, I think.  I come from exceedingly good genetic stock.  Both my father's parents lived to 103.  Anyway, Grandma taught me to knit that Christmas.  We went downtown and she insisted that I only buy 100% wool.  She taught me to cast on and knit and I was completely hooked (or perhaps that should be "needled.").  Since that time, there has never been an extended period of time where I wasn't knitting something.  That first project was a simple garter stitch scarf.  I remember having the finished scarf on the needles from about February until school let out.  Grandma didn't teach me how to cast off!!  But, I found a yarn store in Tacoma, Washington, where I went to school and learned.  I think my next project was a simple sweater.  It was supposed to be a crewneck but ended up as such a scoop neck that I had to pin the shoulders to my bra straps to keep it on!!!

25+ years later, I still learn a little something with every single project.  I've done hundreds of purses.  Literally.  I had a business for awhile making felted bags.  But, demand was high and I ended up with tendonitis.  I had to stop knitting for 6  months to allow my wrist to heal.  Pure torture.  After that, I switched to the recycled sweater bags that I still make today.

In case you're wondering the point of all this, when you've been a knitter for 25 years, you end up with a lot (A LOT) of little bits of leftover yarn.  I've put together a couple of purses simply by pulling all the yarns of a single color out of the cupboard and working them together.  Here are a few examples of those bags:

    The green bag I kept for myself.  The red one sits patiently in my Etsy shop for someone.  The yellow one sold to a lovely lady in Arizona who was rewarding herself for reaching her weight loss goals.  I liked that a lot.

The great thing about these bags is that they were almost free.  I had to buy handles for them, but the yarn was all in my stash.  Which brings me to today's project:  the single balls of yarn.  You never EVERY want to run out of yarn on a project.  By the time you get to that point, every last ball of your yarn in your color and your dye lot will have vanished from the face of the earth.  Better to have 1 or 2 (or 6) extra.  So, after all this time and all these bags and sweaters and scarves, I have hundreds of single balls of yarn.  Wool, cotton, mohair, eyelash, cashmere, etc.  Many times I group similar yarns together in my larger yarn storage cupboards.  But, for the onesy-twosy balls, I use a CD cabinet my dad made for me years ago.

How gorgeous is that!!  I spent about two hours today getting things squared away.  First step was to dump all the balls onto the foyer rug.  Then I sorted by fiber, then by color.  I have issues with putting cottons next to wools.  Maybe the cotton was allergic in a prior life.  I don't know.  But, I would never knit a garment or purse mixing fibers like that.  Wool with mohair is fine.  Cotton with silk is fine.  But, never wool with cotton.

The top 2 1/2 rows are all the wools.  Now, mind you, this is just the single balls.  I have TONS of wool since it's the fiber I prefer (thanks to Grandma).  It's funny how you have a pile of 6 different reds and they all seem to go together even though one is a rusty red, one a cherry, and one a burgundy. 

The bottom 2 1/2 rows are the cottons and miscellaneous.  This is every bit of cotton that I have in my house.  I really only use cotton for baby hats and sweaters.  There are many reasons for this and I'll come clean with all my fiber biases at another time.  But, I do like cotton for babies.

The cabinet is now a work of art.  I'm going to try to put together a new banner for the blog using the photo of the entire cabinet.  Truly, I could look at this all day long...