knitting kitchen

…Sargent Pepper taught the band to play? Not actually. Sargent Pepper was released in the U.S. on June 3, 1967 which means Sgt. was teaching back in the late 1940s?!

Twenty years ago today, Jessye came into my life. Naturally, I was watching the Mets when she was born. I don’t remember who they were playing or who won. I think I got distracted. I do remember while I was pregnant, being bored by everyone asking if we had chosen a name for our baby. If I had said “Mehitabel”, I’d still be met with, “oh, what a great name!” So, when asked if we’d chosen names, I’d say, “Mookie”, after Mookie Wilson. That was usually a conversation stopper.

Now Jessye’s busy amassing stuff like Cinderella toasters for her apartment?! It seems like only yesterday miniature sweaters for her to wear. We celebrated tonight so my day off was filled with party prep. Jess had requested a “Mr. Rodgers” sweater. She had given me a few vintage patterns for mother’s day so I had selected one pattern from the late 1950s and have been knitting it for a while. It’s all done, except for the button application. I wasn’t happy with it as I began to put it together and dubbed it one of my worst knitting disasters. Alle tried it on the other day and told me it reminded her of the sweater they have the kids wear when they need them to be an old, possibly homeless, person in a school play. Great. By the time the finishing was done and Jess tried it on, I was pleasantly surprised. She was pretty pleased too and that’s all I really wanted.

For the rest of the day, there were more things to do than hours. Just the same, I wasn’t at work so as crazy as it got, it was still a day off. Somewhere in the middle of all the important things I had to do, I managed to sew a “knitting on the go” bag. I had this project in my head since last week. I’ve seen these bags all over the place on line and I knew that spending $$ wasn’t an option. I’m pretty happy with the strange collection of ziploc plastic bags and random zippered pouches that I use to drag my knitting across the country. So it’s not like I need the bag.

I actually was inspired to make the bag for my friend Lois. But before I committed one to her, I wanted to make sure that the design in my head worked well. It took a very small amount of fabric, maybe an eighth of a yard of each color. It’s completely reversible and I put interfacing in the bottom to make it a bit sturdier. I used one yard of cord ($0.45), a cord stop ($0.50), two split jump rings, and a lobster claw clasp (left over from making stitch markers), so the entire project cost about $2.50 (as long as you don’t count all the other stuff I bought when I went to the fabric store).

Now that I have the dimensions worked out, I plan to make a few more for my knitting friends.

clasp detail