loxosceles // knitting blog

border half-done on the persian carpet bag!

loxosceles — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:59:45 +0000

Yayy! I’ve now finished one short-side and one long-side border.

The weird triangles along the long border are gussets to give the bag some width when it’s assembled.

The center has been blocked, and the ends trimmed, but the borders have not. That’s why they look lumpy. (Not tight floats – I’ve actually been very careful about that and am sure it will block out beautifully).

Here is a shot of the back:

I actually dreamed about this project last night. In real life, my parents have a blue and brown persian carpet (they’ve had it since before I was born). In my dream, I finished the carpet bag and laid it on their carpet, and was amazed that they were the exact same color and pattern – only difference was mine was knitted, and a little smaller. The more I compared, the more similar they got. I have very clear memories of the details I compared, like little brown four-petaled flowers in the middle of a blue and black stripe.

Also in my dream, I either had a young child or was pregnant, and we got a multi-functional piece of furniture that had a frame with a bouncy swing suspended from it, a built-in crib, and a top bunk topping it all off (with a ladder to get up to it, of course) for the child to sleep in when he/she got older. I remember thinking it was very ingenious and I would have to remember the design so I could build one later.

detangling

loxosceles — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:31:24 +0000

Part of the problem with the Persian Carpet Bag (besides (1) it’s impossible and (2) I was crazy to attempt it) is that shortly after adopting my second dog, said dog thought the project bag was a chew toy. And what do you do with a chew toy? Chew it? Oh no. You shake it repeatedly to break its neck.

And so the project, which could honestly be described as a tangle of yarn, became more tangled than ever. This, I thought, was surely its death knell.

Well, that was then. This is now. I am determined. I detangled.

Here is a shot taken mid-detangle, when I only had 3 balls of yarn left to reassemble:

And here, when the detangling was finished:

Ahh, much better.

knitting again

loxosceles — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:24:58 +0000

OK, so a couple years ago (yes, years) I agreed to knit a Persian Carpet Bag for the local knitting store. I worked hard on it, and eventually finished the center panel of the bag, which is the largest and hardest part. Shortly after blocking and finishing that part, though, I totally lost my knitting mojo. I knit probably less than 3 things since then.

What brought me out of knitting hibernation was my aunt’s feet. They had worn all the way through the soles of her FiberTrends felted clogs that I had made for her in the height of my knitting frenzy. She needed a new pair, desperately. And when somebody literally loves something to death, how can you resist making them another?

So I made the clogs; it wasn’t hard. I even made some alligator mittens for my little cousin. I started a baby sweater for reasons I don’t understand and can’t explain. That’s when I realized:

I’m knitting again.

Not just one pair of clogs, not just a few gifts, but I actually am knitting things because I love the yarn, because I want to see how they turn out, because it’s just a sort of addictive hobby.

Which means I have no excuse to not work on the Persian Carpet Bag.

So, here goes nothing.