Thursday, February 09, 2006

Finished a small drawstring bag

Okay, I was supposed to be trying to knit socks for DH. I got frustrated. My mother warned me that black yarn is very hard to work with when you are trying to learn new techniques. You can't see the darned stitches!

So, I picked up some lighter colored self-striping yarn at Ben Franklin's last week and started making a pair of socks for myself. But there was something weird and loosey-goosey with the cast-on. So I ripped it out. I started over. It looked pretty and lacy but not the way I want the tops of my socks to be. So, I ripped it out again.

Then DH mentioned that he was almost finished making the rune staves for a friend of ours and wondered how hard it would be for me to make him a little bag to carry them in. I immediately picked up the double-pointed needles (size 3, BTW) and cast on 72 with the self-striping sock yarn. Still loose and sort of lacy, but for this -- pretty irrelevant. I did four rounds and got off track with the ribbing so I sort of had a bit of a seed stitch thing going... anyway, in the fourth round every 6th stitch I did a yarn over to create a nice neat hole.

I'm thinking ahead here, see, and know I will need a draw string to close the bag and I'm making the holes as I go around.

Then it was on to the rest of the little bag. The staves are three inches long, so the whole bag is about 5 inches from top to bottom. When I got down near to where I wanted the bottom to be, I decreased by knitting two together every six stitches. Then a whole round, then two together every five, a whole round, and two together every four, etc. Eventually, I was down to three stitches on each needle.

Here I did something bizarre and strange and completely mad... but it worked! It also made for a very strong bottom on this bag. I turned the bag so the needle with the working yarn hanging down was directly across from me by farthest away and the working yarn was a the end (like when making I cord). I took the needle directly in front of me and slipped one stitch onto the fifth needle. Then I went to the needle directly across from it (farthest from me) and slipped a stitch onto the fifth needle. I went back and forth between the two needles alternating stitches until all the stitches from two needles were on one needle. Then I gave the work a quarter turn and did the same to the other two needles. Down to two needles.

I knit a row on each, then did the same thing as above -- alternating stitches to combine to one needle. Then I decreased until I had two stitches and made a little short I-cord. THEN I broke the yarn and got out a small crochet hook, pushed it through the bottom of the bag, hooked the I cord and yanked it to the inside of the bag. Voila! I'm done.

Picture is here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You say
"My mother warned me that black yarn is very hard to work with when you are trying to learn new techniques."
And Yet I will continue to wear black until they invent something darker.
TR