A New Knitting Bag for Me

At the beginning of November I went down to Baltimore to spend a day at NeoCon; an interior design convention; hoping to see something new or learn something interesting. Unfortunately it took me about 3 hours to walk the whole floor and there wasn't anything useful for my current design projects, and nothing I hadn't seen before.

The trip was not a total wash, however, since my sister, Megan, works in Baltimore and I got to spend time with her on the drive to and from, and also meet up with her for lunch. Second best, I also got a great new knitting bag at the conference.

After lunch instead of going back to the convention center I headed in the other direction and went shopping instead. Got birthday presents for both Megan and my Mom, bought a crab cookie cutter; perfect for the crab feast next summer; and got an iced coffee at Barnes and Noble to rest my feet.

Once my feet felt better, I set out for the yarn shop Megan had told me about. It was about a mile away from the bay but the walk went quick, and I had finished my shopping. Unfortunately, the shop was more of a teaching shop then a yarn shop so instead of browsing, I had a nice chat with the owner and then picked over the small selection before settling on a pretty hank of gray mohair lace yarn.

I'd say half of my trip was a bust, the design show and yarn shop were not what I wanted them to be, but the time with my sister, shopping, and my new knitting bag still more then made up for them. Now I'm packed and ready to head to the Christmas tree farm for the weekend, I think I have enough yarn...

My Little Friends

With any craft, knitting has it's own set of small accessories that make it easier to finish a project, and over the almost three years I've been knitting I have acquired several of them. First they were thrown into a plain old ziplock bag for safe keeping but it wasn't long before the scissors poked holes in it and things started leaking out of the bottom.

Then I started searching high and low for a clear pencil case to keep everything in. I wanted it clear because by then I was used to seeing everything in the ziplock bag. I remember having pencil cases when I was a kid so I figured I should be able to find something at least close to what I was looking for for relatively cheap, right? I should know by now when I get something so specific in my head, I will never find it.

With no luck finding a pencil case or at least a worthy substitute and zero desire to change ziplock bags every two weeks when I learn of a hole by way of scattered stitch markers on the floor, I decided to reinforce the next ziplock with packing tape. I double and triple taped all the corners and edges, hoping to ward off any holes until I could find a permanent home for everything.

It worked for a while, but finally the scissors and DPN's I'd stashed in there were starting to make it a scatter-hazzard, so I resumed my searching, finally laying my hands on a great see-through bag. I found it at a local yarn shop, but it is a Knit Picks item and can be found in many sizes on their website.

I happily transferred all of my tools to my new bag and decided to take the opportunity to share with you what's in there.

 All of my tools and accessories happy in their new home.

  

Can't be without a good pair of sewing scissors and blunt eyed needles.

 

 A small tape measure picked up at a trade show and stitch markers.

 

  My tired cable needle used for all the beer koozies I've been knitting, and stitch keepers to keep my WIP's safely on my needles, or for turning DPN's into standard needles for a small project.

 A crochet hook, probably smaller then it should be, but it was on sale and I didn't know any better at the time. The pencil is for modifying patterns as I go along. 

Don't count on your memory when you change a pattern, always write it down!

 These are probably the most random things in the bag, the needle and thread I use to get small beads on my yarn before doing bead work, and the chip clip is perfect for holding two edges together as I seam a project, making sure I don't end up lopsided as I go along.

So that's my kit of parts, what tool do you get the most use out of and what do you think I need to add to my bag?