The Grrlfriend Market Bag: a great way to lift spirits of others as well as your own

My love affair with cotton yarn continues as I've been busy knitting up a storm with the stuff. In the last week, I've finished three waffle dishcloths and two Grrlfriend Market Bags. If you aren't familiar with the Grrlfriend Market Bag, I suggest you check it out on Ravelry if you are a member. The bag is knitted in one piece, starting with the square bottom (I even got the hang of magic looping the bottom) and then the lace body. It is really quite simple and easy to make.

The bag is designed by Laura Spradlin of Sugar Bunny Boulevard and there is a lovely story behind the creation of the bag. Six months before designing this pattern, Laura became the recipient of a sweater, given to her by a friend. The sweater belonged to the friend's ex-husband. She hoped Laura could recycle the sweater into something else.

Laura inspiration for the bag's design came from a random act of knitting challenge issued by a blogger, asking her readers to knit something for another person who needed a lift in their life. She soon remembered she had the sweater in her possession. Soon the yarn was unraveled, dyed and the bag was created. It was soon presented in its new form to her Laura's friend who gave her the sweater. In her pattern, Laura writes about the bag, "We help to lighten each other's load. We strive to share the burdens of life and aid in the purging whatever might be weighing each other down by replacing it with something that lifts us up."

In total, the sweater made three bags. Laura has been kind enough to share this bag with the world by making the pattern free. All she asks that bags made from this pattern never be sold for profit or as part of a kit.

I'll be making more of these bags, in hot pink. (Details on my hot pink knitting projects will be discussed in a future post). I love these bags. This bag is specifically for darling daughter's sand toys. I could have made it in brown, but I love the colour of this green variegated yarn. It reminds me of my early childhood. It reminds me of the green roof of my grandparent's log house, the green work uniforms my grandfather religiously wore, the green cushions at my grandparent's summer trailer, their green shag carpet (hey, it was the 70s) and the green leafy trees that once shaded my childhood home.

Happy knitting! I hope you enjoy this wonderful market bag pattern as much as I do and that you are able not only to lift the spirits of a friend, but your own through the knitting of one of these bags.

The magic of magic looping

This post is for all the knitters out there who hate using and fiddling with double pointed needles. If you haven't already ditched those darn needles for magic looping, you should. My friend K got me onto magic looping. She had mentioned it to me and her tip came in quite handy when I was making a sweater. For whatever reason, I couldn't get the sleeves right with the double pointed needles I was working with. It looked like there was a run down each side of the sleeve. After a quick magic loop tutorial on knittinghelp.com, I got those sleeves done. And I was hooked.

Basically when it comes to magic looping you are knitting small diameter knitting projects on a long cable needle. When you get the hang of it, the technique is is quite ingenious as well as simple. It looks a bit complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is quite addictive. I've magic looped two longie legs at the same time. I've magic looped sleeves. I've magic looped the legs, arms and body of a sock monkey. Right now, I'm magic looping a small baby hat. It is much easier than using double pointed needles. The other day I had to add more length onto a sweater. Instead of using the cable needles I used to knit the body of the sweater, I had my long cable needles handy (same size as the smaller needles I had used) and started magic looping.

Although I still occasionally have to use double pointed needles, my dpn usage has been cut down significantly directly because of magic looping. My new knitting motto is when in doubt, magic loop. You can never go wrong when you magic loop.