My sweater

My sweater is finished. When I went to buy buttons, I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to use blue ones that were the same color as the sweater or silver antique looking buttons, so I bought both. After I got them home, I decided on the silver ones. I like the looks of the  finished sweater, but the fat old lady wearing it - not so much. :)

My Tote Bag is done, done, done!

Way back in the middle of January I started to knit the Tote kit that my daughter Colleen gave me for Christmas. The pattern was driving me crazy (see my blog posts dated February 17 and February 29) so I decided to forget it and just go ahead and knit a bag of my own design instead. After several attempts, I finally came up with a simple design, but using all 12 of the yarn colors in the kit. At first glance you don't realize how many colors are really in the finished bag.

I actually completed the knitting several months ago but kept putting off sewing the lining. Although I know how, sewing isn't my favorite craft but I'm very good at procrastinating.

I bought the lining fabric shortly after the knitting was done. While in the fabric store I spent at least 5 minutes in front of the thread display deciding on the exact right shade of thread to match the lining and bought the perfect green thread.

Yesterday I decided I'd put off lining the bag long enough, so I went to the closet to get the bag containing the lining material, thread and interfacing. When I opened the bag there was NO THREAD! Now I know I brought that thread home because I showed it to my husband, Bob, and he even remembers it! I searched the entire house yesterday, looking for that darn thread, but couldn't find it. Now, I admit, my house is not the cleanest in the world but I'm a fairly organized person, especially when it comes to my sewing and knitting supplies. I have a drawer full of thread with a variety of different shades of green but NOT the thread intended for this bag. I finally gave up the hunt and used one of the spools of green thread from the drawer. It is okay but NOT the one I wanted. I was afraid that if I put off sewing the lining until I got back to the fabric store for the right shade of green thread, I'd never sew the lining at all.

So, I cut out the lining, sewed 2 pockets on the inside and put the whole bag together. Here it is - finally!

I'm on a roll.

Since I frogged the sweater I was designing, I've been busy knitting someone else's pattern, as I said in my May 31st blog. You can see it here:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/career-check

Last night I finished knitting the back and today I've done about 3 rows of the left front. So long as I can keep my stubborn old brain focused to remember to reverse the direction of the slanted portion of the pattern when I work on the wrong side, I'll be fine. sigh  

My preferred method of knitting sweaters is top-down and seamless but this one is knit bottom-up with the back, two fronts and sleeves each worked separately, then seamed.  The neck band and front bands are worked after all the pieces are complete. I've done any number of sweaters using this method in the past so I don't foresee any difficulties with that.

It's really not a difficult pattern, that is, when you pay attention to what you're doing. Here's a look at what is complete so far.