Greetings From South Dakota!

Today was a very productive day, but first let me pass along the pictures from yesterday.

Here is the Booga Bag blocking: isn't she cool? I love her.


And this is me before I ripped out that entire scarf:

That's why I look so excited. This was one of the pictures my sister wanted to take to make up for erasing my Booga Bag Before pictures.

After breakfast Sara and I headed to Hobby Lobby. She wanted a sketch book and colored pencils and I was after some sort of handle for the Booga and possibly a magnetic snap. I was envisioning a long handle as is customary for the Booga, but I didn't want fuzzy handles; I wanted smooth, possibly leather, possibly some kind of cord or something handles. I didn't really find anything, but they did have a half an aisle of bag-making accessories and I picked out some black plastic handles. I almost went with the beaded handles, and decided I'm more of a smooth plastic person. I also almost got the leopard print handles, but decided they would clash with the stripes.

Naturally, I used every last inch of yarn in making the bag, and have nothing with which to sew on the handles. I'll find something when I get home. I did find some magnetic snaps, but they clamp on through the fabric and would show. I might use a bit of something around the top edge to add some stability, and I could add the snap to that. I'd also like to add something to stabilize the bottom. Maybe that'll be my project for tomorrow.

My project for today was cleaning out the house. After lunch I went downstairs and went through a couple of boxes of fabric and craft stuff. I found this:

It is the first sweater I ever tried to knit. I didn't know anything about gauge or yarn stores or how to seam or colors or anything. The pattern came from the back of Vogue (not Vogue Knitting). I purchased the yarn at Target (which was certainly NOTHING like the yarn it called for in every way). I was in Jr. High or High School. I remember seeing a guy from school at Target with my arms full of yarn, I had to tell him I was making a sweater, and I was so embarrassed. Things sure have changed. Anyway, I was certainly never going to sew on the second arm, and finish the sweater. No way. It was supposed to be huge and drapey, and it was not. So I took it with me to drop off at the XRX offices downtown. They will take it to the State Penitentiary and some guy who can't knit will rip it apart, and then some guy who can knit will make it into something else. Yeah charity!

I headed down to the new (only) yarn store in Sioux Falls. It was lovely. It's called Yarn Knit (it was explained that it's supposed to be like "darn it!"...but it's not.) They have been open since March, and have a lovely selection of yarn. I wish it was in St. Louis because it would be a nice compliment to the stores we have. She had a lot of things our stores don't, like a wide variety of Brown Sheep instead of just Lamb's Pride, and a wide selection of Dale of Norway instead of just Tiur. She also had Koigu!

Look, it's my first skein of Koigu; isn't it cute? I'm going to make it into a neck warmer.

When I returned home I set to working on the closet in what was my room during college, and is now the spare bedroom/mom's office. It had a lot of high school memorabilia and some college, and other stuff, and a ton of clothes. It's all clean now. Look what I found:I made this when I was quite young -- maybe seven? I pounded the nails and everything. My father remembers that he must have bought it as a kit. There are many things about the seventies that I don't miss. String art is one of them.