It was calling my name, honest!

I had every intention of working on my socks this weekend. In fact, I wanted to work on them so much that I went to the yarn store to get a set of size 2 bamboo DPNs so I could work on the heel of the Cedar Creek sock. Notice the words yarn store in that sentence? That's where I went wrong!!

I decided to go The Knitter's Studio in Menlo Park because I had other things to do in that area. Little did I know that they were having a sale on Koigu! But that wasn't what got me...it was the class sample they were displaying for a felted bag that snagged me! Now I have seen felted bags before, but for some reason this one really grabbed me. Maybe it's the fact that I could use bigger needles than size 1 and 2...maybe it's the way that the bag shrinks and changes textures through the felting process...there was just something intriguing about the whole thing.

I couldn't attend their class because the date and time were wrong for me, but I really wanted to knit one of these bags! The people in the shop were very helpful in finding a pattern sheet, helping me pick a yarn, and figuring out how many skeins I needed. I picked out a gorgeous mostly-teal self-striping wool that was, of course, expensive (don't have the name of it here). To help reduce the cost, I bought a solid teal wool to double-up with the self-striping wool.

And, you know I started it right away when I got home! Here's a picture of my progress.


This picture doesn't show off how teal this is, but you get the idea! I have about 15 more rows to knit on the bag part and one more strap to make. The pattern calls for using a novelty yarn in the last few rows, but I'm not sure whether I want to do that - the self-striping wool has given this a lot of character already. I don't think it needs more...I have another 8 rows or so before I have to make my final decision.

Just so you won't think that I abandoned my socks completely, here are the latest pictures of them.

Jaywalker: Cedar Creek:
I brought Cedar Creek with me today as my lunchtime project, so I hope to make some progress on the heel.

All-in-all, it was a good knitting weekend, just not on the projects I planned!