Dinos went without....

... a digicam! yes, and also without microwave, mobile phone etc. - just like me:) but we had another old-fashioned film developed, so here is a slightly out of focus pic from my "sunwheel" bag. this is the second one I made by knitting in E. Z.'s 'pi-style'. it's easy to do, just double the stitches and after that double the rows until you have the size you want. knit two circles and one long, narrow rectangle for the handle, sew the rectangle into the circles (well, I knitted one row of k2tog, yo, added a few more rows and folded it over like a seam, before I put in the handle part.... ) - and throw everything into the washing machine. the whole thing shrinks and the holes close enough not to let small stuff slip out of your bag. the handle part rolls in onto itself to reinforce it for carrying. if you tack the seam on the outside border back towards the main part during the wash, both sides felt together and give a nice, stury, slightly scalloped rim.

for decoration you can embroider the bag after felting (or even before?), but I wanted to use some of the kg or so of small metall brass wheels that a friend sent over from Berlin. this is all mixed up, all different sizes (I think those are called pinions? the tiny wheels a watchmaker uses...). so I picked some that I thought might fit and knitted them into one outer part before felting. when the bag was felted, I fixed them with embroidery stitches and put a few other rounds on - all done with parts of two 'once-offs' from Oliver Twists embroidery yarns.... now I just have to think about projects to do with the rest of the kg (I think I used about 10 g of it up:)... the first bag I did this way (in purple) showed one mistake! I had put brass wheels into the first row of increases - which looked ok when knitting was finished - but formed an odd bump after felting. the fabric couldn't felt properly underneath because the rings were too close together and prevented it! taught me a lesson, no wheels in the middle, and the felting went fine. I might take up another one in a little while - this time much larger, the red one has just enough space for going to the shops etc. - not enough for packing my knitting!

in the garden the rain has given everything an enormous boost - I think if I sat quiet for a while I could see the grass grow:) unfortunately that works for the weeds too... the ramsons are starting to flower and I picked a big, fat bunch today to save some in the freezer. yummee - freshly baked bread with chopped ramsons in a bit of butter! the photo is from last year though - there are only buds on it now. the pic shows that they can be grown from seed - but only if those are really fresh! bought stuff is too old by the time it reaches the customers - and the fresh seeds need to be left in the pot (or the ground) to overwinter. come spring they sprout out and grow well - and even self-seed if put in the right spot, somewhere in light shade.