First we plan very carefully. Jill will pick me up at a pre-specified meeting spot, we will drive to the store (about a mile away) and then we will SHOP! We wanted to see what the new Swift knitting bag by Tom Bihn was like. Specifically we wanted to see the colors and fabrics up close before buying.

What’d I get? Here’s a sneak peek:

We start here:

Tom Bihn is on the second floor of this building, straight into that door in the center. if you go in the front (in the left on the picture) you’re in the Outdoor Research store, which was filled with so much great stuff, that I wish we had more time than the two seconds we went in to ask how to get to the Tom Bihn store.

We look around for a while and make some decisions. Here’s jill:

(Jill told me she didn’t like her picture either, so I made it small for her) :)

Here I am:

(Smaller version cuz it’s a terrible terrible picture of me). They have great bags there. Awesome awesome bags. So what’d I end up with?

This!!

This is the Utility Tote. I liked the larger size of it. I didn’t need any more stuff sacks and since the Swift comes with one (I have a bunch of the GoKnits pouches already and love them.) I opted for the Utility Tote instead. It holds a LOT. I won’t tell you what Jill bought because she bought some stuff as gifts, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

We asked to be shown the Swift in the Cordura fabric, and the Ballistic Nylon fabric bag. There was very little difference between the two fabrics. They both had the same texture on the outside, and were very sturdy. The Ballistic Nylon bag stood up on it’s own a slight bit more, but otherwise I don’t know that we would have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to us. Also we were told that the price on the Swift is probably going to go up at the end of the year. The $70 price is an introductory price. So get one now if you’re so inclined!

New stuff! We always love new stuff. Packages in the mail are my favorite :) So here it is - My first toe up sock (which still looks funny to me, maybe when it’s done, It won’t look mutant), and a few new bags I’ve acquired:

The bags are GoKnit bags from Scout’s Swag shop. I had a hard time figuring out what size they really were just from the website measurements, so I ordered a few in each size. I got a large one (not pictured), 2 medium (1 shown on the left) and 2 smalls. I didn’t think I’d like the small ones as they just seemed too small based on the measurements from the website. Well, I love ‘em. I’m a bag nut anyway - so I had to have several.

Medium
The medium is great as you can put quite a bit in it; and it’s the most flexible size. I can see working on an entire adult sweater back or front and using this bag. Probably could keep an adult sweater that’s in-the-round in it, but might get a bit tight as you got towards finishing it. Right now it’s got a sleeve in progress that’s mostly done except for the sleeve cap. (Also both of the smaller bags fit into it as well, I just can never decide what to bring with me to work on!)

Small
The blue small bag has my green toe-up sock (shown), and there’s tons of room to spare. The small maroon bag on the right has a lace shawl, the p’cock in it. It might not fit as well when I switch to the 2nd ball of yarn, but for now it fits just perfect, except i have to fold my pattern in fourths instead of just in half.

Large
The larger bag I don’t like so much (maybe why it was shunned and not pictured here). It’s really too big to do the clip on thing like the smaller bags do, without me worrying about the small snap strap breaking eventually however, it’s perfect for carrying lighter weight spinning fiber, so I guess I’ll keep it and use it for that. :)

Conclusion
In the past I have made my own bags that resemble these pretty closely - the draw string closure, the stopper thingy that lets you keep it closed, the basic shape. GoKnits has an added snap thingy that lets you attach the knitting bag to your belt, your purse, or wherever, and also a snap loop in the bag that can help guide your yarn if you want (so far I haven’t used this one). The outside snap thingy is awesome. I like the material (rip stop fabric) because it’s lightweight, and doesn’t cause any drag on the yarn as your’e feeding it out. The colors available are great. The best thing? I don’t have to wait until I sew them. The fabric I have used previously was stuff I had in my fabric stash, so cost was minimal, but my most used bags were tearing and getting holes in them. We’ll see how these hold up over time. The GoKnit bags are a bit spendy, but worth it for a bag-nut like me.

A lot of fellow knit-bloggers have been blogging about a new type of cool knitting bag. If wasn’t originally designed to be a knitting bag; but it definately has become one.  After seeing it for the 4th or 5th time, I couldn’t resist* anymore.

I thought it would be nice to use a smaller bag than my backpack on the way to and from work on the bus.  Some of the bags I’ve made to hold knitting are too nice and not as durable as I’d like for day to day travel.  I ordered it on ebags (they had a free shipping offer), and it arrived today (4 days early I might add). Well, it’s a bit bigger than I expected.  Here it is sitting next to the backpack it would have replaced:

Hm. Not exactly "small" is it?  They do give measurements on the website; but it’s always hard to tell how big something really will be. I guess I should have measured my backpack first to see how big it was!  (The colors in the photo are a tad bit off. Backpack is red, and the bag is a "Cinnamon" color which does have a lot of orange in it)

I’m not too unhappy - this bag is large enough to hold a sweater in progress. In the picture the backpack is leaning against the couch, but the new bag isn’t.  The whole inside of the walls of the bag are lined with pockets. Perfect for storing your knitting pattern, and Storage Containers in, leaving the center of the bag free to hold yarn and the knitting project.   I’m definately going to order a smaller one though - I’m hooked!

The other bonus with this bag - it has an anvil on it.  Knit Foundry anyone?  :)

*I have a thing about bags. I love different bags and containers. It’s garnered me quite a collection!

I’m a sucker for a pretty bag.

It’s a Lantern Moon bag, and I’ve liked a lot of their larger bags, but just couldn’t resist this one.  Perfect for toting around a sock project. I actually have two sock projects inside it right now, the first is modeling with the bag. (That’s the Sept SOTM kit from theknitter.com).  The inside is made of a slickery material, an ultimate requirement in any knitting bag I use. The outside is sturdy and as you can see, stands up nicely on it’s own. It has a drawstring closure that makes it a bit hard to dig around inside the bag even when fully open, but lets you easily get your project out while leaving the ball inside the bag while you work.

It’s a bit more attractive than the unshaped totally squishable sock-knitting bags I’ve made myself in the past. The big difference being I can’t shove this one inside my purse.  Ah the price we pay to be fashionable!

I find myself constantly moving my knitting projects from one bag to the other. Part of the problem is that I don’t have enough bags!  I make these kind loose sack things out of slippery fabric with a drawstring closure.  The slippery fabric lets the yarn slide in and out easily without causing additional friction. It also means the bag is a lifeless lump:

It just lays there, and you really have to dig to see what’s in it.  I have two of these. This is the larger of the two. The other one is gold and is perfect for holding a pair of socks in progress. (Actually I have three. Another one that is burgandy, much smaller and I made with little pockets inside to hold a ball of cascade fixation each for working on socks two at a time with circs. I no longer knit socks that way and the bag is a tad bit too small overall.)

Bag version #2 uses some batting to stiffen up the sides slightly, and it can stand up even when opened:

You can see the little plastic clampy thing that helps keep the bag closed.  So far I really really like this style of bag. It currently contains three projects. Cross stitch scarf (seen peeking out the top here), Katie’s Opal socks, and my new Cashmere-y scarf which I haven’t started yet. It will only contain two once I start Cashmere-y scarf and have finished Cross stitch scarf.

The only thing which would make this bag better would be some sort of handle to carry it around with when it’s closed.

The handles I was going to put on it looked stupid, so I never sewed them down. I have a few ideas and I might have to make Bag #3.

Oh, and I have a seeminly infinite supply of this shiny fabric. I have no idea what it’s made of. It is washable, but it looses some of it’s sheen when you machine wash it. I originally bought it to make a really mod 80’s jacket in the late 80’s. I found the fabric at SAS fabrics in Phoenix AZ. It was a place that had huge bins of fabric (think dumpster diving through fabric) and you paid by the pound. It was an awesome store to shop at.  I think I paid maybe $15 total for four different colors of fabric. I used up all the gold & blue, I have about a yard of this blue-ish/green-ish color left and 2+ yards of the burgandy.

I went to my knitting group this morning. As always a great time. Talking about knitting. Doing a little knitting. Passing Xander around. Looking at new yarns, seeing what everyone else is working on.  We got to talking about stashes. I thought I’d fess up and share what mine looks like. I have three stashes - spinning, knitting and quilting.

First, knitting:

On the very left are the more ‘active yarns’. The open basket contains stuff I’ve played with recently, or the other yarns for small projects (like my gloves) and a few other misc odds and ends. The two bins underneath that are the most recent aquisitions. The top one has actual sweater projects. Bjerk is waiting in there, as is Xander’s fair isle cow/sheep sweater.  The drawers hold my needles, yarn winder, ziploc bags (2.5 gallon size. Great for organising projects) misc spinning tools like my lazy kate, bobbins.  The umbrella swift is too big to fit anywhere inside, so it sits on top of the drawer unit. There is one bin on the very bottom back right that holds enough yarn for several sweaters. I went on an ebay kick after I first started knitting :)

Another of those bins in the back on the right is only half full, and it has spinning fibers in it.  The other two are mostly sock yarns.  Way too many sock yarns. 

So my spinning stash is both smaller and larger in some respects.

On the top: Olga (I think) a Corriedale/Something cross that is really fine. Under her, the dark fleece is Alice in both containers. The bottom container has batts that I created using a drum carder for Alice.  The box has Mission Falls cotton, a lot of leftovers from quite a few projects.  And under that - I have no idea. Some kind of fleece waiting to be prepared and spun up.

I’ll wait for another day to share the Quilting stash.  It’s a bit more sizeable because I’ve been working on it for a much longer time.

It seems I’ve acquired a few knitting needles over the past year.

Now how could that happen?

All of them are circular needles, with the exception of my DPNs. I had my grandmother’s whole collection of aluminum straight needles at one point, but I decided I didn’t want to use them, ever, so gave them back to my mom. (Is that needle snobbery?)

I had/have one of those fancy circular needle holders that I bought at my LYS (for the tune of $30. Yikes), and it just doesn’t do the job. First, it doesn’t have enough pockets. Second, they all face one direction so you get a huge bulky lump in the middle. Third, you can’t tell what size the needles are unless you label the pouches, and then you end up with a bunch of needles in one pouch, and only one in another pouch. And you can’t tell the lengths either without pulling out the whole bunch and then you’ve got a mess on your hands. Here is what it looks like with no needles (I forgot to take a pic before I took all the needles out):

Being the overly-organized person that I am. I kept the ziploc pouches that my needles came in. (most of which are Addi Turbos or Addi Naturas, a few Crystal Palace circs here and there.) Why? Probably because I realized that I would someday want to put the needles back in their little pouches.

Before the fancy needle holder, I tried one of those fly-tackle fishing bait bags, but it really wasn’t adequate for what I wanted to do. Plus it just wasn’t "pretty":

Yesterday at Target, I picked up a cool expando-flexy thingy for a whole $7. It’s designed to hold paper and organize household information, so it’s big enough to hold 8×10 pieces of paper, and has half the pockets are half height. It’s semi-see through, so you can see what you’re getting at (in theory). It’s just plastic, so maybe it won’t stand up in the long run, but it’ll work for now. If I really like how it works, maybe I’ll make a fabric version of the same thing (although then I lose the see-through-ability, unless I can find some plastic-type substitute, like maybe some screen grid material stuff? Hmm.. the wheels are churning).

Now, I can put my needles back in their (labeled) ziploc baggies they came in, then organize them according to sizes. Smaller needles can go in the front pockets and larger ones in the back. I can easily open the whole thing up and dig through my needles. It closes securely (something the fancy one I bought doesn’t do) so I can take it with me places without fear of loosing a needle if it shifts.

And here is what it looks like open:

I still have about 10 more needles to put into this container (currently in projects, or in the basket for the project. I’ve got 5 or 6 in the Hardangervidda basket by itself), and I should make an inventory of size, length and type. I assume I might outgrow this container someday. In that case I might look into doing a fabric version of the same thing. Or just get a second expando-file. Or something else.

And just for fun, this is what I have my DPNs in:

And opened:

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I love containers. I’ve been working on the binding of two quilts lately (one done, one in progress) which is hand sewing. I’ve been taking them with me because I’ve got a deadline to meet. In order for me to take along my small sewing kit, I need a container for it. I only need the thread, my thimble, a needle case and some scissors. I found the perfect container to carry my sewing kit:

I thought the smaller one might be even more perfect, but it’s not big enough to carry both the thread and the needle case; so I’ll just have to suffer and eat the gum. Here’s a picture of the inside:

I lined the lid and bottom of the Altoids container with some flannel fabric so it would reduce the amount of clattering that goes on when the container is in my backpack and I’m walking around.

What else can you use an altoids container for??
How about build a radio and put it in there? http://users.frii.com/rwc/r-m/
My dad has actually built this radio and uses it!

I’m looking for a link to show you where I got my thimble (which is the best thimble I’ve ever used, and I loooooooove it tons), but I can’t find one now.

The UPS man has been very kind to us lately. Not only did he bring us new movies for my daughter (so we don’t have to listen to Monsters, Inc for the 400th time), but yesterday he brought me these:

These are baskets from Royce Craft Baskets. I have three other baskets I ordered from them about 8 years ago, and they are still in great shape. They are handmade, and signed by the person who made them with their initials and date. While they are a bit country for my taste, but they work so well for knitting that I couldn’t resist ordering these two with liners & lids. The lids will keep the cats out of my knitting and help hide it from little inquisitive hands that might decide to pull a needle out of my work just for fun. The larger size is a Canawl, and the smaller one is the Tollhouse style. (I think of choc chip cookies when I see the word Tollhouse, don’t you?) I thought the tollhouse would be as square as the Canawl, but it tapers more at the bottom. It’s perfect for the midsize projects, and the larger one is great for bigger projects. See?

You can see the liner in this shot too. I ordered those so that I wouldn’t lose very small stitch markers through the bottom of the basket, but I’m not sure I would again. The Tollhouse basket’s liner is a much better fit than this one, which is a bit farther from the sides that I thought it would be. I’m still in love with the baskets, and I’ll still carry my knitting to work with me even though lots of people ask me if I’m having a picnic for lunch!

Sock
Forgot to mention - I’m making decent progress on Katie’s sock. I’ve started the heel, and am chugging along:

Somehow I missed the fact that my typepad trial subscription was over yesterday. I was figuring on staying anyway, but kind of thought they’d send me an email warning me. So now they’ve charged my credit card, and here I am! :)

Bags bags bags!
I love little bags. Well, I love big bags too. You should see the collection of backpacks/laptop bags/other bags I have in my linen closet. There was a discussion on Knitters Review Forums about small tool bags to hold things like crochet hooks, stitch markets, tapestry needles, scissors and so on. One person posted a link to Walker mesh bags. I see many possibilities for these bags (esp some of the larger ones down lower on the page) for use in knitting. A store sort-of-near-me-if-I-take-a-long-lunch carries them. Here’s what I picked up:

The Walker website doesn’t show all the different variations on the small mesh bag. The yellow one is perfect size for my knitting tools (size 4×7", and called the "Checkbook" style) The purple one would be great if you had to carry a bit more - as it has two pockets, so you could put a pattern or notecard in the larger space, or bigger tools (The whole bag is 5×7", with the smaller pocket the same size as the yellow bag. These are listed under "double zip cases" on the walker website). The red one I just had to have - it’s too cute (size 4×5)! I have no idea what I’m going to put in it. I thought at first stitch markers, but it’s a bit large even for that. The store I went to didn’t have any of the larger bags that might be good for sweater projects. The mesh on these bags is very fine - even my smallish tapestry needle wouldn’t fit through the mesh holes. The inside edges are all serged so they are smooth and wouldn’t snag on anything. I’m so pleased with my find - I may have to order a larger bag to try for a whole project!