Recycling???

I am drowning in plastic grocery bags! I use cloth grocery bags but somehow I still end up with at least 2 or 3 plastic bags every time I shop. What is a girl to do? I diligently roll them up and take them to the recycling bin at the store, but obviously I need more reusable grocery bags.



This is where the strange thought process begins... I remember long ago my dear friend Jen telling me that she was knitting grocery bags out of grocery bags. That could be the answer!



Here is part one of the result... The test... Okay, I abandonned the needles in favor of a crochet hook, but it seems to work pretty well!


I think I will have to experiment a bit more. So far, I like the crispier grocery bags better than the softer Target bags, but I like the spots of color that the printing on the bag provide. I think the bag will be very strong when it is finished. More progress as progress is made...

A sweater takes shape...

I have been working on a new sweater for myself for the last week or so. So far I have about 9 inches of the body done. It is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in blue, sort of a split pea soup color, and terracotta. I am doing big bands of the blue and pea soup with small purl ridges between the sets of stripes. So far I really like it. The blue and pea soup yarn were ebay finds, so I hope I won't run out... I am working the entire body at once on a large circular needle, back and forth since it will be a cardigan. I think I will do raglan sleeves since I really liked how they turned out in the kiddo's sweater (see first post for picture). The stripes are made of a garter stitch rib that looks really great in the cotton and adds a bit of depth to the project.

So far the only trauma that I have experienced is that I broke one of the wires for my Denise needles last night. Now I have to mail it in for a replacement! I do love the Denise needles though... I have used them for about 3 years now and they are so nice to work with. The tips are sharp, the plastic hard and smooth, and the convenience is unbeatable.

Tomorrow we will work on i-cord projects. The kiddo is definitely as string boy. Today he sewed on plastic canvas for at least an hour!

Today we made i-cord

Does anyone out there know what to do with yards of i-cord? In a weak moment I bought a Bond Embellish Knit! on a recent trip to the craft mega-mart and the kiddo LOVES it. The problem is that I forsee having literally hundreds of yards of i-cord filling up my house. Can you weave with it? Do we really have to make flowers out of it? It does make pretty rightous jumpropes, but how many of those do you need?

I think that the i-cord machine will chug along until we are completely out of sport weight yarn in the stash. (I had better find a way to lock up the sock yarn stash... Lots of i-cord and no socks would be a BAD thing...)

I will post the results as we search for useful purposes for i-cord... Any suggestions are more than welcome as well!

So... This is a blog...

Well, it seems that all my friends have blogs, so I figure why not... A little about me...

I knit too much. Since the first of the year I have made 3 and a half sweaters and one and a half socks. One sweater is a baby sweater (for a nephew due in June), one is for me (think adult-sized complicated Aran sweater), and one is for my amazing kiddo (Mission Falls 1824 Cotton with bright colored stripes on a black background... He picked the colors!)

I just finished the TKGA Master Knitter program and am qualified to call myself a Master Knitter. I am not sure what that gets me other than the warm fuzzy feeling that I am done. The process to get the certification is rather long and it took me about 3 years to finish.

I love to cook and to eat. We recently moved from Oregon to Virginia and I am going through food withdrawal. Last summer we managed to eat locally (and I mean truly local) produced food for about 2/3 of our diet. It is really easy when you live 50 miles from the pacific ocean, and in the middle of the Willamette Valley. Half of our fruit came from our neighborhood! Our neighbors had apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees. We had blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries in the front yard as well as tomatoes and garlic. Now that we live in Northern Virginia and it is harder to find good local food, but we are beginning to figure it out. There is a good farmer's market that just started back up here, but I have not been able to find anywhere that sells local products in the suburban sprawl. I will keep trying! One good thing is that we have excellent meat available since there are half a dozen halal butchers in the area.

I am blessed with a kiddo that will eat anything. The only food that he down right hates is potatoes. He won't eat them in any form. Not fries, not mashed, not chips, not au gratin! Of all the things that he could refuse to eat, this is actually pretty easy to live with. I certainly don't miss the idea that McDonald's fries could be a staple. He loves olives, and good bread (you know the kind with hard crust and chewy center), and adores blue cheese and chevre. Not bad for a mere child of five!