Warm Fuzzies

Saturday Market Bag

I've been so super busy these past couple of weeks that I'm still scratching my head a little, wondering where all that time went.  I was able to finish a couple of (small) projects, but never got around to posting about them.  July's been a month full of guests; my mother and sister came to stay with me for a full two weeks (I miss them already), and another friend is here now, just for the weekend.  I'm expecting two more house guests next weekend.  Busy, busy, busy.  But I am totally enjoying the company, so my crafting will just have to suffer a little.

Environmentally friendly shopping bags have really gained momentum these past months, and I found myself compelled to join the bandwagon.  While I lusted over bags that could fold into its own pocket, like this singlet style shopping bag and this crochet reduction tote bag, I wanted a super-quick project, so the pattern that I finally settled with was the Saturday Market Bag, with Liesl from disdressed's modifications. 

                        

The pattern was very easy, and Liesl's modifications made seaming minimal, so I finished my bag in no time at all.  It's wonderful, it keeps stretching, and stretching, and stretching...  There's a bottle of maple syrup, apple cinnamon pancake mix, a box of cereal, a loaf of bread, a package of walnuts, several apples, and a large carton of yogurt (mmm....breakfast!) in the bag, and there is still plenty of room to comfortably carry more.

Since I can wear the bag on my shoulder, it's much easier for me to carry home heavier items than it has been for me using the traditional plastic shopping bags.  And I look *much* more chic coming home with my groceries in this great looking bag.  After unloading all of the groceries from the bag, I can ball it up so that it's no bigger than a ping pong ball.  Then I just toss it in my purse, where it takes up minimal space, and pull it out again on my next grocery shopping excursion.  Cool, huh?  Hehehe.

Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet

I had this Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet pattern bookmarked since forever.  After sitting around twiddling my thumbs for more than a year hoping the capelet would magically knit itself, I finally found an excuse to knit one for myself, and boy, am I glad I did.  Now I'm kicking myself wondering why in the world I didn't make it sooner.

                             

You see, I was invited to an engagement party in Seattle where all guests were asked to wear black and pink.  I have black garments galore...but pink?  Yikes.  I looked through my wardrobe and found 3 pink shirts (one of them was a t-shirt, haha).  Nice for me to wear out on a normal day, but not to a semi-formal party.  I didn't really have the time to go make a special trip to shop for something pink to go with my dress.  I was packing for the trip and in the middle of convincing myself that a pink necklace and earrings would bring enough color into my ensemble to offset the black when it hit me.  That capelet that everyone on Craftster keeps making.  The Anthropolgie-inspired one.  I could knit a pink one.  And theoretically, I could start and finish it on my flight to Seattle.  And so it was decided.

I happened to have just purchased the last two remaining skeins of pale pink Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton yarn during a big sale at a local yarn store the day before, thinking I'd just stash it away for a while (I know, what are the chances of that?  This capelet was meant to happen, hehe).  I immediately retrieved the yarn, shoved it into my carry-on, and printed out the pattern for my in-flight entertainment.

   

I knit in the capelet in the round to minimize seaming.  It was a pretty quick knit; I was able to finish the knitting and weave in nearly all of the ends by the time I arrived in Seattle.  Although my capelet wasn't looking it's finest at the party (I wasn't able to block the capelet before the party, and had completely forgotten to pack a brooch to pin the collar on top), it looked great with my dress.  I couldn't ask for anything more.