Note that I tried to crop out my weirdly bulgy arm, but couldn't do it without cutting Frieda.
The new Mason-Dixon book arrived on my doorstep earlier this week, and it was hard waiting until the weekend to start a new project from it. Fortunately, the project I started was the Monteagle Bag and not the Liberty Throw (rav links, both), so it's already finished. This is a good, basic shopping bag pattern with some very interesting stitches that I haven't used before. It won't hold a million things, but I did fill it with a half gallon of cranberry juice, two quarts of tomato sauce, and three beers when I was stretching out the stitches, and it held everything just fine. I do have my doubts about how "green" is a bag made of $20 yarn that travelled here from Belgium, but I do think that it's a great idea to use as few plastic bags as possible. I'm planning to knit more--there's less than half a skein left of the original skein (Louet Euroflax Sport weight), but I have another black hank so I should easily have enough yarn for two more. Still pretty pricey for a string bag, but a less expensive cotton or linen would work fine as long as it's strong. My hands are bone dry tonight, so I probably won't start another bag right away. And on the next one, I will probably start with sock-toe cast on so that I don't have to seam the bottom of the bag (see below).
As for the rest of the book, I love it--there are several patterns that I am sure to make, and a few others that I'd love to make if mohair didn't rip the skin right off my hands when I knit with it (Cardi Cozy, I'm looking at you). Maybe a laceweight alpaca or silk would work? It could be worth looking into. I bought some yarn to swatch for the Liberty Throw this weekend, I'm having trouble thinking of alternate colors. I do like the original blue and red, so that's an option, but I have a few other combos that I'll test out first.
I did work on the Cables, Baby! cardigan today for about 10 minutes before I had to stop seaming because I hate seaming so much. It's ridiculous that it's taking me so long to seam this, it's a small sweater and it will be so cute when it's done. Here's how it looked today when I stopped:
Just one more sleeve to attach! Then sewing on buttons (after I've picked out some), and weaving in ends, and that's it. Why does it feel so far off?
