My Constant Companion

I have had a successful felting episode! I was nervous putting all the pieces of this bag into the hot, hot water and letting it agitate with a pair of old jeans but I had to have faith that everything would work out alright. My previous felting experience wasn't a very good one. I didn't put anything in the washer to help felt it so my swatch came out lopsided. The yarn for this project was Patons Classic Wool which I got from AC Moore about 3 years ago!

Anyway, here are the pictures of my bag: from before felting to the final product!
This is the body of the bag and the I-cord handle before felting.
These are my swatched which later became pockets. I used patterns from Slip Stitch Knitting. I loved this method!
Here's the finished bag with the outside pocket.
This is the bag inside-out. These are my inside pockets. Since I take my knitting to my son's practices, there's room for my cell phone and his Epi-pens.

I used the blanket stitch to attach the pockets. I brought it to work and got rave reviews! I'll definitely try felting again! Also, I found out that the box that holds plastic garbage bags was perfect to use to shape the bag after it was felted!

The pattern for this bag can be found in Knitter's Stash by Barbara Albright.

Weird Dreams

I know the name of the blog is hipknitta but I warned you all that I will write about whatever I want to write about. This is about old boyfriends. Back in January I had a reunion with my very first boyfriend. We went out when I was 16. I haven't seen him or heard from him in over 30 years. One of my mah jongg ladies' husband went to graduate school. How did I find this out? Well, during a game, we were listening to music from the '70's (music is the soundtrack of my life) and I said that the song playing reminded me of ........(name of the boyfriend). My friend said, "Did you say.....?" I told her I did. She wanted to know how I knew him. Was this the Spanish Inquistion of old boyfriends? Let me preface this that this woman grew up in Massachusetts along with her husband. I grew up in the Bronx and the boyfriend grew up in Queens. This is far away from Massachusetts! I told her that he was my very first boyfriend. She told me that her husband went to graduate school with him! They are both physicists! My mouth fell open. To make a long story short, her husband had a 50th birthday party where we were invited and there he was. Let me tell you, I made sure I looked really good. It was a very sweet but short reunion because DH and I had to leave for another function. I'm glad that I got to see him after all these years. He has 2 sons, older than mine. I met his wife (hello, couldn't you put on some lipstick?) and she seemed nice, too.

Now to the next boyfriend. This was a man I dated for 2 1/2 years. This was the life-changing relationship that sent me to therapy but I guess it was something I had to go through to "grow up". This man was 13 years older than me to the day. This man was an alcoholic and that's what did us in. I just found out that he died a few weeks ago. He had some surgery and afterwards his system started to shut down. I don't now if this was alcohol-related but I was dumbfounded! The weird thing was that he popped into my head 2 weeks ago as I was driving! Strange but true. I was truly sad that he died. I guess I'm the sole keeper of the memories and even though the break-up wasn't a great one (are they ever?) there are a lot of happy moments I can remember. I haven't spoken to his sister since the break-up, about 20 years ago but I feel compelled to send her a sympathy card. I'm going to send one to a very good friend of his who was a friend of mine when we were dating.

Last night I dreamt about him. I saw his face so clearly and it looked good! We were in someone's house who just had a baby. This baby was very small and I held the baby for a while. Then later as I was walking around this house, he was sitting on the floor with the baby next to him. I told him that wasn't the way to hold a baby and he told me that I should have one. I told him that I had two! I also remember telling him that I remember a lot of sweet times together. I kissed his cheek and walked away. I thought it was a nice way to say goodbye, even if it was in my sleep.