LYS chatter

I have the best abbreviated conversations at my LYS. This week, after surviving a marathon week of too many school volunteer activities, I stopped in to just hang out and unwind. Phyllis was there talking about an upcoming dinner party she was hosting with her extended family. Another woman was there telling us about her successes with the cupcake hat. Check out the pom pom cherry, it is my humble contribution.

We got to talking about families and the their different occupations. One family member was in China during that dreadful earthquake. Another person was sharing the statistics of how many trees it takes to make chopsticks. I suggested that while it is true that losing so many trees to a table setting was not very earth friendly, I'd like to meet the guy who came up with the idea of using depleted uranium to make knives and forks. It was meant to be a mumble but another woman giggled. I forgot that she was a former engineer brainiac who knew all about weapons systems. Seriously though, you all should really be aware of the metals that are being used today. Buttons, jewelry, zippers, pots and pans, there is an entire industry that uses spent weapons metal and some people have shown to be allergic or dead but I digress...

We talked about the science of pom poms and pom pom makers and how many skeins of Cascade 220 it takes to make that Noni Medallion bag.


And speaking of bags, I've been making a bunch. It started one evening when I was visiting a friend who just closed her restaurant, Jezebel's

She's now semi retired. Because so many of us can't live without her food, she decided to open a small take out service instead. You should see the lines! Her restaurant is in the theatre district and on any given night you'll see all kinds of starving actors, bus drivers and wanna be rappers lined up to get potato salad and fried chicken!


Seriously, her restaurant attracted all kinds of people, Denzel, Stevie Wonder, DeNiro... I had been a client of hers for over 25 years. When I was working in New York, I was at her restaurant almost everyday after work.


As we were talking about old times she noticed my felted purse and asked me to make one for her. That began a marathon purse making phase trying to find a style that I could make over and over with some variations.

There's the Sophie bag, a cute idea but too small. There's the Clutch You'll Never Give Up - my new favorite - fast and functional. Booga bags, hobo bags, bucket bags, I've tried a bunch but so far, I prefer the clutch.

Felted pink Sophie

Prefelted

This striped bag started out as "My Constant Companion" but I somehow decided to change it - didn't keep any notes so I have no clue what I did.

This was supposed to be the Deco-Ribbon bag, an unfelted purse done in seed stitch. I used a felted handle. I found the vintage button at a craft fair.

Another bag that I knit from my stash. I think I used Plymouth's Boku for this one. It started out as a Booga bag and well, I went off somewhere.


I finally settled on a pattern that Berta K. of Karabella once wrote out for me. It is ginormous to knit but one of my favorite bags


I'll let you all know how it turns out!