Good morning!

Happy Thanksgiving, for those of you who partake. We had a nice time.

One of the highlights of the day was that Saint Cheryl taught me how to 'knit back', or knit without turning. What a cowinkidink, I was just reading about in some other blog about somebody catching on how to do that.

Well, actually, I learned how to purl back, because I was garter stitching (is that grammatically correct?), but whatever. Not easy at first, but even so, it was nicer than turning that long strap (for the backpack) and knitting across the back. And it was challenging, so it made me more interested in the boring strap knitting process.

And I can finally announce that the straps for the back pack are done! YEA! ::insert muppet dance here::

Now, I can't say the backpack is done, and here's why.

originally, I get the pattern and say 'Oooooo.... I wanna make that right away!'. But, of course, I couldn't just *make* the thing, that would be too easy... So I decide to make my own color pattern. Little tiny stripes instead of the big ones in the pattern. No problem.

Knit, knit, knit.

About 30 rows from the top of the bag, my roommate looses the pattern in one of her cleaning frenzies. I still haven't seen it. So now I get to wing it. No problem. I remember the pattern... Right?

Knit, knit, knit.

I finish the body of the bag! Woo! Now I have to do the straps.... At this point, I've decided to make a 3 color flap for the top, like a 'regular' backpack, rather than the kinda odd string things holding the one in the pattern closed. I figure out where to put the straps, I think, and begin to knit one. No problem?

Knit...

Knit....


knit....

Boy, this is boring....


knit....

and then I put it down. Knitting ten and turning was terrible; I wanted to stab my eyes out. So I sporadically worked on it for a month.

Last weekend I went to my friends, dutifully dragging the backpack. I'm so sick of doing the strap that after a month and a half, I only have like five inches of the *first* strap. My friends laugh at me, and this motivates me to finish that first strap.

I cast on the second immediately, afraid that my enthusiasm will fade.

Thursday, while things are cooking, we sat on the couch and watched DVDs (Man with Two Brains, Gammera the invincible, and the Two Towers). Saint Cheryl looks over and says, "that'd go quicker if you knit back, you know." and proceeds to show me how.

Hallalula!

I finished it in less than an hour.

I have undecided to do a colorwork flap... but Wendy has made me want to do pockets, so I will. Anybody got any ideas for motifs? The whole bag is gray with red and blue stripes...

Stay tuned....

I have seen the face of yarn god, and it is Velona Needleworks.

Ok, maybe not, but it's the best I've ever seen, down here in Southern Ca, where yarns stores seem to be few and far between.

Velona Needleworks... my god, it's a saphic orgy of yarn.

My friend took me there because it was her birthday, and I told her she could go to any store and spend 40$. Of course she picked a yarn store!

So I walk in, and stop dead. The store is huge (compaired to the 'yarn closets' i'm used to), and packed to the ceiling with yarn. Every type of yarn i've ever heard of was there, in bags and shelves and boxed. From Lambs pride to trendstter, lace weight to super bulky. Cheap acrilic was there, shoved into a nook at the back. Eyelash, glitter, fur, railroad, flashing before my bedazzled eyes. Casmear and angora items beged to be touched. Every surface, vertical, horizontal, or diaganal, covered with kits and bags and patterns and yarn.

Oh so much yarn.

yarngasm, from both of us.

So we poke around for a little while, and next thing we know, one of the boy pops in and says we've been gone for an hour, the babies are crying, are we almost done?

An hour? It felt like moments... The alien abduction of fiber people can be done with yarn.

We touch, and talk, and ooo, and ahhh at everything. She can't decide what she wants, and i'm picking up things, putting them in my basket, and then returning them for something else I can't leave behind. We're drownding in choices... and loving it.

Eventualy we find ourselves at the counter, and she puts her little stack of yarn up there, and I find myself with only one (1) skein and 2 sets of needles. How the hell did I do that? the store isn't the cheapest, so we tried to get the most from our money.

Anyway, here's what I got. One skein of Trendsetter CIAO, a neeto ribbon-type yarn that looks like a little tiny knitted tube. I got it in the Brown/black Leopard colorway, and it's the softest thing I've ever felt. It's wonderful!

More later. I wanted to share my yarn love with yall.

Hello again!

Boy, November is hella busy for me! I feel better than last time, and no, you don't want to know.

Lets see... Haven't knitted a stitch. Not one. Haven't even picked up my needles in days and days, though I look at my yarn and drool now and again.

I did pick up "Folk bags" at Borders. Looks faboo. With all the bag knitting going on, (I blame Rob and Wendy), this book couldn't have come at a better time!

Here's some of the bags I've found patterns for (* means free pattern!):

*Suki, from Knitty
Booga, (link to Wendy), mistress of Booga bags)
Lots of bags from Two Old bags, pictured in Rob's blog , my favorite so far; the felted daypack
And all the other bags on Rob's blog are great too.

anybody else have any neat bag patterns? Maybe I'll take after Wendy and put up a bag pattern page...

:)

sick. Miserable.

Not knitting. Not doing anything but working and moving and school and being sick.

Oh, and Nanowrimo. I'm up to 6608 words.

Went to the Southern California Handweavers sale. Was good; only bought 6 pounds of yarn and a set of headles. Oh, and a booklet called "Spin, span, spun" about spinning folklore.

Gonna go now. miserable. Completly, utterly, miserable.