Hello, and Happy Saturday

Saturday morning, and John drove off to have something welded in another town, ready to enjoy the morning road trip with a good Model A buddy.  I have several hours on my own, weekly groceries already purchased, emails answered, and so forth.

Here's my current knitting project, a little evening bag in sparkly yarn, made on the standard gauge machine, in a woefully unfinished state.  What remains is an act of faith, doing the finishing work and believing this can be made beautiful.  It needs interfacing to give the envelope some shape.  Knitting usually involves this ugly stage, when the unfinished object looks absolutely terrible..

Can this rag be redeemed into a cute evening purse?  Um, I'm not absolutely sure, but I do think so. 

I knit a little while most evenings, going upstairs for perhaps 30 minutes after supper dishes are done or perhaps working a while if John is detained at work and I'm stalling supper.  This little purse was knitted in those snatches of time, just a round or so of blocks at a time.

There are so many decisions to be made!  I wondeer how much to block it out - I really don't want it too flat, since I'm going for a silver/gold woven look.  I like the three-dimensional Entrelac texture and usually don't want to flatten it.  I have to dig through my messy sewing stash and see if I have something for a nice lining and whether I have some crisp interfacing.  I had the idea that with crisp interfacing, perhaps it could still be a little textured but have straight edges from being sewn down to a stiffened lining.  That makes me wonder whether I'll need to tack it down here and there to prevent it from sagging away from the lining.  No idea until I try it.  Perhaps I'll have to block it quite flat and make a new, larger lining.  I think I'll put a pocket inside, and I also need to decide on a button.  I will probably add a string handle, either a twisted cord or an I-cord variation. 

For years, I've thought a cute evening purse would be a wonderful gift item for ladies on my list, but I wanted something special.

I was supposed to be working on a slipper book, but here's what happened.  I had been daydreaming about this evening bag idea, but didn't see a yarn for it that I liked.  One day, I was innocently shopping for more slipper yarn, minding my own business, when silver and gold yarn balls jumped into my arms.  Their would go back in their cubby holes, and they followed me home like fat little lost sparkly pupplies.  After that, they sat there, looking at me, until I made a start.  Then, of course, once I made a start, the object began to take shape quickly. 

Around the same time, though, I also managed to knit piles of slippers, finish charting the pattern in all the sizes and gauges, using the same approach, just sitting down for 30 or 45 minutes in the evening and doing a little more.  Last weekend, I tried out the pattern on my knit club, who are always such good sports, and sure enough, my pattern needs a little more information.  Once I fix that, my new lined slipper pattern goes off to the testers!