laptop sleeve progress

I managed to get another inch and a half on the felted laptop sleeve project tonight. You can compare my progress to the beach knitting photo in my October 4th post. There were all kinds of sports to watch tonight on television: NASCAR, the Patriots, and I am still watching the Red Sox. Sports are perfect to knit while watching. I think I have about 10 more inches to go on the laptop sleeve before I will need to sew it up, make a strap and then felt the project. Maybe this is a project I will need to pack for this coming weekend trip to Grand View for the knitting retreat.

Go Sox!!

Update on the felted laptop bag

I completely was out of my gourd thinking the bag would be done before going to Hawaii. Significant work has been done on the bag in Hawaii; it has been to Waikiki beach. However, my original thought upon seeing the washing machine down the hallway in the hotel was that I might actually finish the bag and then get it felted and dried in time to use it to carry my laptop home. Since we depart tomorrow, that's not going to happen. Considering that today is going to be a majority beach day, I could come close to finishing it, but it won't get felted while in Hawaii. And hopefully it doesn't bring home too much white sand either.

Swatch

I broke down and had to swatch for my felted laptop sleeve on Sunday. I talked a big talk about jumping in and being all cavalier with my knitting. But after 5 days working on the sleeve excessively, and only getting an inch, I realized I better swatch and find out how much this sleeve was going to felt. My swatch didn't shrink horizontally at all. In fact, it could have grown by a 1/2 inch. I called my master knitter, Denise, to make sure that was a possibility. Vertically, it shrunk from 5 inches down to 3.5 inches. So with these new figures, I have now casted on a much smaller number of stitches for the laptop sleeve and I am now about 3 inches into the new sleeve, and I want to get to 20 inches before felting. I have a much better chance of actually finishing this sleeve and being able to use it for the trip now. Though I suspect that the sleeve may still be drying as I board the plane.

Starting the Laptop Sleeve

Another fine Wednesday night spent at the monthly knitting guild meeting at The Elegant Ewe (my local yarn store) in Concord, NH. I couldn't overcome my impulse to immediately start on a sleeve/bag for my laptop. Now that the Hawaii trip is booked, I think I want to take my laptop and will need something to carry it in on the plane. And though I have had the laptop for about 3 months now, it doesn't have a bag yet. I am going to jump right in with both feet and start knitting. I purchased six skeins of Cascade 220 while at The Ewe tonight, and spent part of the guild time winding the skeins. I purchased two shades of brown, a darker fuchsia pink, a mauve pink and a blush light pink- strikingly close to the color scheme I am intending for the wedding. Despite most of the group member's urging and caution, I am skipping the swatching phase, so who knows what I am going to end up with in the end. I don't need no stinkin' swatch test! And if I had the right circular needles with me at The Ewe tonight, I would have started the laptop sleeve there. I did finish the pair of baby socks made out of 100% Merino wool in the Geranium colorway from Knit Picks. Stay tuned for my blog entry on how the laptop project ends.