Bag beginning and bamboo, bouncing on the bus

Had a long trek into The Big City by bus, crocheting handles of a peachy-coloured string bag on the way. The bag had been started on the CSM, with every other stitch dropped. Quite pleased with the effect but thought a crochet start base would be better. Tried this by Montse Stanley’s pinhole start on eleven trebles, next round increased to 21 trebles, next round 42 trebles. Looked a bit tiny so did a round of 42 double trebles. It will just stretch to every other needle on the machine. Added advantage is that it could be put on an empty machine, no fiddling with cutting waste yarn off afterwards.

My business finished in the big city, caught the bus back but got off in one of the suburbs, half an hour in the Fabric Place choosing some jersey fabric for a new frock, then crossed the road to Yarn, or as I prefer to call it from their website address, yarn-in-notts (think about it!). I was shown a new sock yarn, Happy by Wendy (Thomas Ramsden Group). This is 75% bamboo and 25% nylon and I could see straightaway that the CSM would love it, and I was right. Bamboo yarn is rather lively, so it snarled up a big on re-winding, but not enough to annoy. The colour way is Aquarius, and the small blue splashed in the pale green seemed to come out a slightly different pattern in each repeat, which is rather charming. AND the price is only £5.95. I ran the remainder through the Knitmaster, 64 sts, 148 rows at T7, so it looks like with care I will be able to get a pair of short fingerless mitts out of it as well - I do gloves starting on 56 sts increasing to 64, in case you are wondering why I chose that number of stitches.