Monday, November 19, 2007

Everlasting Procrastination

Like many people, I work well under pressure. If I have a looming deadline, my decisions become faster and more decisive; my fingers fly across the keyboard; my yarn across, under, around my needles is a blur.

But I need to be right up against that deadline for that incentive-fueled speed and agility to set in. So now, when I have Christmas projects planned, and the yarn is sitting hopefully on my shelves, it becomes vital for me to knit myself a market bag.

So I cast on the Everlasting Bagstopper, from Knitty.




To be fair, it is a very quick knit, and I was done in just about two days. At first, I thought it would be a serviceable little bag - handy, but not big enough to be used for a real grocery shopping trip. Until I was actually filling it. I kept adding more and more and more, and the bag just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I had three boxes of cereal, bread, bagels, salad, cans of soup, a pork loin roast, a brick of cheese, toothpaste...

The bag said, "Bring it on."

So shown here is the amazing, magic stretchy bag, full of pretty much a couple of weeks' worth of groceries.


(Large) cat shown for scale.

Overall, a very satisfying project. The only change I really made was to knit the handles. I did this because I didn't have any non-Christmassy ribbon on hand, and didn't want the bag to sit around forever, waiting for me to remember to buy it a handle. As a result, the handles really stretched out, but they're still not so long as to make the bag unwieldy.

I would definitely make this again. With shorter handles, maybe.

4 comments:

charlotte said...

I love the bag! Make sure to bring it with you this weekend:) Thanks for the cat for scale because the groceries are not really that helpful for that. That reminds me I better put my allergy medicine out. I love the bag!

Chelle said...

Aren't those bags the neatest things?? I'm working on a collection for teacher/EA/bus driver gifts this Xmas. I figure if I tuck an assortment of homemade baked goods in each one, it should be a big hit...at least preferable to another coffee mug or dollar-store toiletry item.

Love the cat BTW!

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about that bag or a similar one as next year's Christmas gifts. (2007 is the Year of the Noro Scarf 'round here.)

Kirsty said...

That is quite amazing--and it looks great. Beautiful cat too!