Half Brea plus Pima Poncho

I finally finished the first half of the cotton Brea Bag I'm making! I made a mistake somewhere but I'm sure it won't show too much. I had some trouble getting into the pattern for the first 6-8 rows, but after that it went on pretty fast. Now I have a doubt about finishing it. The pattern says, for last row:

* Sl 2 tog knitwise, k1, psso, rep from * 3 times more.

Doing so I end up with 6 sts. What am I supposed to do after that? Just bind off or follow the finishing instructions?

With RS facing, using crochet hook and 2 strands of yarn held tog, work in Reverse Sc along top edges of bag back and front

If someone knows please tell me!


Besides that, to relax a bit before I start the other side of the Brea Bag, I've started the Desirée poncho from Viva Poncho. I've ordered the Cascade Pima Tencel yarn on the Quality Fibers Shop on eBay and got it pretty fast.

The shade is the one suggested by the book, 1317 Pink, but I have to say that in the pics it looked more pinky but from real is a mix of pink and cyclamen, that I like less.

The amazing thing is this cotton-tencel yarn. Touching the skein in seems normal, but after is knitted it transforms in something extremely soft. It's amazing. It doesn't even seem like cotton. I've tried to understand what Tencel is but I'm not sure I have. It seems some kind of new natural fiber. Anyway the result is fantastic!!!

The pima poncho is worked in Brioche stitch a stitch that once understood goes on fast and easily and the result is very very nice. I should finish the poncho pretty fast and then concentrate on the scarves for Vik's project!

My first S'n'B, finally

Yesterday I made it, I went to the Stitch 'n' Bitch in Milan. In the lovely surroundings of the Fiat Cafè in la Triennale, Milan's design museum, we chatted and knitted.

I had a great time with Typesetter, Ing. and Pm10, and I was really glad to finally meet them. We even had a super special guest, Ingrid's little girl, Anke Leen. She is a great little crocheter and made a lovely mini blanket for her doll.

Ing. finished her marvelous Forecast sweater, Typesetter advanced in her revisited summer top, Susan finished her *adorable* crocheted hat (I am totally partial ;-) and me? I made 2 rows of Brea Bag and one row of my crocheted blanket.

The rest of the time we obviously chatted and compared our different ways of knitting and crocheting. I didn't know there were so many ways of achieving the same results! So Fascinating! I didn't even know that it was physically possible to knit at Ing's super speed. This girl is a real serial knitter, no wonders it takes her only one week to finish a sweater!!! I am impressed and totally envious :-D

Great day so, and I look forward to the next meeting!

Saturday Stitch 'n' Bitch in Milan

At la Triennale in the Fiat café. Details here

I'll come with my Brea bag (still at 1st row..) and the crocheted blanket (still looking like a scarf...) ;-D

Se you there Milan Knitters&Crocheters

Knitting for the homeless

All around the world! How cool is this map? Vik you're a genious!

For the Lucky knitters in NY

A very interesting Expo

Brea mess

Sometimes I am such a mess! Since I fell in love with the Brea Bag pattern I focused on it and I really wanted to do it in this week end (knowing that I still have to finish my crochet blanket and I have to start knitting for the homeless...).

Every time I step by Knitaly's blog I'm more and more exited about this lovely knitted bag. The only problem is I am toooooooo messy.

I've started the bag three times now. The first time I used a single strand of yarn and the knitting needles were too big, so the texture was too large. So I undid it. The second time I used two strands together, but I miscounted the stitches and I had to undo it. The third (I really thought it was the LAST) time, I switched again to a single strand and I used thinner needles. But, although I've been very careful counting the stitches, I'm at the end of first row and... I have two stitches in excess. *____* I'm hopeless. I guess I'll start again tomorrow...

Let's knit together...

...to help others! Vik launched this beautiful and helpful project for homeless people, knittingforhomeless.blogspot.com.

Italian knitters I'm telling you this so you can join Vik, making even just one scarf would help the needy. Spread the word!

I'm on it and if you want we could make a knitting/crocheting group together :-)

Brea Bag and Manos are here!

Today I went yarn shopping a bit. A friend of mine told me about a yarn outlet here in Milan, it's called Lanar (via Nino Bixio 7) and it's really full of very fine yarns, but most of all of extremely tasty offers. I went there to buy enough yarn to make my own Brea Bag, in the cotton version as suggested by Knitaly, and I found a very good deal! I got 350 gr of bright red cotton and 950 gr of strong fine black cotton for a very appealing prize. I'm pretty happy with that, I might even make two bags (well with all this cotton even 4!!).

Now I only need a few accessories, like a handle and some buttons. I have no idea where to find the handle, if anyone here has a hint (websites or stores in Milan) please help me!


Because I was already on the move, I decided to visit also the Manos de Uruguay shop in Milan. Thanks to Typesetter that told me where to find it. The idea, as I told before, is to make a "So-called scarf" for next autumn. The shop is located in via San Michele del Carso 6 and the owner is a very nice and sweet lady. She let me touch all the skeins, and gave me all the time I needed to choose the right shade. I think I finally picked up the color "100 - Agate" (in the pic here) but because the color numbers do not correspond I'm not totally sure. Anyway is a very seductive melange of purple, orange and burgundy red. Very beautiful, I can't wait to start my scarf!!