Charmed, I'm Sure

I'm so excited. An online friend of mine who is a big Harry Potter fan (as I am) has sent me a copy of Charmed Knits by Alison Hansel. What is so amazing is that I have never met my benefactor in person, but she saw this book and thought of me. Now I have to get some yarn in house colours so I can knit some of this stuff up. Let's see...burgundy, gold, green, light grey, black, dark blue, yellow. I'll bet Patons Classic has colours that would work.

Work progresses on my mindless knitting project, the big felted bag. I am going to use all my colours of Armytage, to get a poor-man's Noro effect.



What I learned from the first panel, where I knit up a whole ball of 'Marmalade' (orange and yellow), is that the long sections of main colour are a little too large. So on the second panel, when I got to the main colour of the 'Ruby Twist' colourway (not shown), I snipped the yarn and removed a huge length of the main colour so that it would look more like true stripes, without the colour blocks. That is why I like the 'Foliage' colourway (greens). See how the stripes are narrow? That is because the "main" colour has less subtle divisions, so the striping is more pronounced. I wish all the colourways were done that way, but at least I found a workaround.



Work on the potholders progresses well. I used only the fusible batting, and it turned out a little stiffer than I would have liked for potholders (it would be great for placemats). When I bought the fabric and batting, I didn't think to buy thread, which is kind of embarrassing until I remember how many years it's been since I sewed anything seriously. I looked at the patterns stored with my sewing machine and they were all copyright 1989. Even if the fashions came back in style, I'd never use those patterns again because they wouldn't fit me now.

The Stolen Moments wrap is still on the needles. It's at a place where I can move forward with it. And I will.

I just read on Sandra's blog how she messed up some knitting by trying to work on a complicated lace pattern while chatting with friends and drinking some wine. I guess I am coming to terms with the fact that messing up knitting is not exactly a character flaw. It might just be a product of circumstance.

Whew!