c
- keep the house tidy (mostly do ok on this already)
- keep the house clean (this is the main prob)
- make ongoing effort to make house look nice, ie new cushions, pics for the walls, etc
- do something about the jungle garden (it looks very bad, our neighbour said he was going to pour weedkiller on it!!! (how rude to say that to me!) It's not THAT bad but it's not good.)
- try new recipes regularly and eat healthily
you get the picture.
My second resolution is to get fit and trim. I got that started this morning by going for a 40 min walk with the doggy. I plan to do this every morning, we'll see what difference that makes.
On to new business now. This is supposed to be a craft blog yet somehow I haven't posted many of the things I've made so I'm going to redress that now.
Over Christmas I made the French Market Bag. I've been meaning to make this since I first saw it on Knitty two years ago. It was pretty easy to knit, good for knitting while watching TV. I'm pleased with how it turned out though it's floppier than I expected. Perhaps it just needs more felting.
If you are a Ravelry user you can see it here.
Right now I'm making a string bag. I started out making Elisa Nest Tote and got up to doing the handles but I didn't like the way the icord was attaching, it was kind of lumpy and the seams on the sides were a bit wobbly too. So I ripped it out and made up my own pattern. I decided to make a solid garter stitch base (like the one on the Everlasting Bagstopper) so that the corners of things like books wouldn't poke out the holes. I also wanted to knit it in the round to eliminate messy seams and so that I could attach the icord to live stitches rather than to cast-on and cast-off edges. The most challenging part so far has been converting the Star Rib Mesh lace pattern (from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns) for circular knitting. It's embarrassing to admit but it took me about 5 hours to figure it out (I was watching TV at the time too, that's my excuse). My husband asked why I didn't just give up but there was no way I was going to let it defeat me, I'll never advance at knitting if I do that will I?
So here it is in the flat and in-the-round versions.
Flat knitting:
Multiple of 4 sts plus 1.
Rows 1 and 3 (wrong side) - Purl
Row 2 - K1, * yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *
Row 4 - Ssk, yo, k1, * sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *, end yo k2 tog
Circular knitting:
Multiple of 4 sts
Rows 1 and 3 - Knit
Row 2 - * yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *
Row 4 - Remove beginning of round marker, k1, replace marker, * yo, k1, yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso; rep from *
Here's a pic of the bag so far, you can't see the stitch pattern well in this photo so I'll take a better one soon.
I'm off to do some sewing now. Promise I'll post more regularly in future :D
