Frog or Finish Friday-Cotton Bag

I started knitting this cotton shopping bag back in March of 2008. I love this yarn but it’s thick/thin nature and the fact that it is cotton made it difficult to maneuver on the needles. The start of a round moves on this pattern and at some point I made a mistake and couldn’t figure out exactly where or how to recover the travel on the pattern. So, it sat unfinished for 4 years! I’m so terrible.



Fast forward to now and I don’t need another shopping bag. So I frogged it and started over.



What I do need is another cotton mat to lie under my dish rack. If you are still using those plastic mats that come with the dish racks, I urge you to get rid of it. Those things do nothing but hold on to water attracting bugs, mold and smells. Not to mention the feet of the dish rack start to rust. I threw mine out last year after crocheting a mat to go under it and I have not looked back.



This is very simple. It’s wide enough to cover a good amount of the counter front to back and I’ll go until I run out of yarn. I’m not using particular pattern but I do find it better to alternate between single and double crochet rows. Having the single crochet gives much needed structure and the double crochet allows the piece to grow in size without being too bulky. Because of the thick/thin nature of the yarn, the piece still looks thick and substantial which is needed to soak up the water from dripping dishes. Every home should have 2 to 3 of these at all times.

Tossing The Stash

Warning…more cleaning and organizing!

If you are a follower of The Yarn Harlot, you know that Ms. Stephanie likes to “toss” her stash once a year. She’s not getting rid of anything, just mixing it all around so the old stuff is not constantly stuck on the bottom. I decided I needed a bit of the same thing. Even though my yarn closet had a little bit of organization to it, it had gotten a bit out of hand and I’m not sure what all I have anymore.



These are shots of my closet. It was stuffed. I couldn’t see the floor anymore and to get the folding tables out, I would have to pull out several bags of yarn first. This was really starting to irritate me.

Step 1 is to get everything out of the closet! As usual, my guest bedroom is the staging area for the mess that was to ensue.



I had already taken the sheets off the guest bed to wash. If I had not already done it, it would have been necessary after this. Piles of yarns makes a mess and something in my stash makes me itch a bit. I have no idea what as I touched everything so I’ll have to keep an eye out when I finally get to knitting some of this stuff. Note, both the bed and the fold-out table in the back are covered with yarn.

Some of my yarn is still in the bags they were purchased in but so many of them had the misfortune of just roaming free. If you really need a reason to keep your stash organized and neat, just take a look at the yarn nests that had been created.



The situation was actually worse than it looks in the picture. It took hours to get all of the yarns untangled. And actually that black has not been completely untangled yet. I think I’m going to have to devote some serious movie-watching time to this one. To keep this from happening again, I have separated all of the yarns into separate plastic bags. I have collected a mass of those plastic covers from sheets, pillowcases, curtains, etc. And I am so glad that I have. These things really come in handy. When I was out of those, various sizes of zip bags fit the bill just fine.



Getting it all organized and neatly put back into the closet has made me want to get back to my yarn crafts, but there is one more thing I am determined to do first. More on that later. For now, look at how great my closet looks now. I’m so happy I can actually see the floor and my folding tables can slide out with no yarn shifting at all.



For all you yarn crafters out there, are you a regular stash tosser?

Happy Mother's Day

I’m a day late but I hope all you mothers had a great day yesterday. I put together a fiber care package for my mother. She lives in a small city in Mississippi and is stuck with whatever the local Wal-Mart decides to sell. I don’t know if they sell felt-able yarns so I decided that’s what I should get her. I went to my local Michael’s and picked up at least one of each color of Paton’s Classic Wool. There were two colors (white and green) that were on clearance so I picked up three of each of those. I pretty much cleaned them out on this brand of yarn. They have signs posted that say they have a new yarn section coming this spring, but those signs have been up for a while and spring is almost over. I hope they restock soon--not that I need any more yarn.

My mother’s package also includes felted purse patterns from Pipp’s purses. I can’t wait to see what she does with them. I purposely put together one ball of each color to encourage her to stripe her bags. I threw in a couple of needles and a set of notions.

​

I was on the phone with her as she opened the box and she was absolutely thrilled. Maybe she’ll have cast on a bag by the time I go to Mississippi next week.

Enjoy all the gifts that you have received, especially the gift of family.