It's a bag

Here it is, finally finished, my Euroflax linen "Carry-It-Home bag." The pattern says to knit the mesh until you have 4 yards left and then do a three-needle bindoff. I did that, but I think it's too big. It's a market bag but if you put anything in it, it stretches and gets even bigger. Maybe once I use it I'll feel differently.

Once I finished the bag, I started my purple July Project Spectrum project, an Aran hat using the purple Malabrigo I got at the Knitting Knight sale. (will post a picture next time) As you would imagine, as an Aran pattern it has bobbles and cables. WELL, guess what I did? I was on the row with the fifth set of bobbles and second twist of the cable, and I realized that two of the bobbles were on the INSIDE of the hat. Yeah, THAT would be real real comfortable, bobbles inside the hat. I can't believe I did that. Instead of a knitting blog I should call this a knitting mistake blog. I seem to be so dense with my knitting lately. I was keeping track of each row with a pen and paper and obviously forgot to write down a row. And why is it I didn't notice they were on the wrong side? And what else could I do but rip-it rip-it, so I did. Started it over during my lunch hour today.

My little wheel and I have been out roving the range. I have been spinning at Ironworld, which is a museum "dedicated to collecting, preserving and interpreting the history of Minnesota's Iron Ranges." Here is one of my displays that I set up when I'm there. Ironworld has several wonderfully preserved historic buildings which all have interpreters working in them. I am doing my spinning in the (modern, new) museum building, but we all wear historic costumes. There is also a weaver there using one of the two beautiful looms in the room. One is a 100-year-old Finnish loom, and the other a 100-year-old Norwegian loom. Can you guess which is which?

(The Norwegian one is the one with the straight lines.) It's different spinning in a museum because I am part of the exhibits. And people take my picture as part of the exhibits and that takes a little getting used to. There were some visitors from Korea and the wife stood with me while I was spinning and her husband took our picture. Ok, I wonder what they are going to be saying in Korea when they see pictures of me spinning? (probably, OMG, she's tall....)

One of the historic sections is called the "Glen Location." It is a section where miners and their families lived from 1903 into the 1930's. They still have one original house left, and a boarding house where miners stayed. This stove is in the little house, isn't it gorgeous? I want it. When they would quit mining a certain mine and move on to another location they would offer the houses for sale to the miners for $1, but the catch was they had to move them, which cost $100. They would move their houses from location to location. Can you imagine? Hitting the road and taking your house with you. That amazes me. They actually moved the entire city of Hibbing to make a mine bigger. The whole city, 200 buildings. Can you imagine? I wish they had pictures of it. I keep finding different dates as to when this took place, but it seems to be around 1917. (http://www.hibbing.org/historical_info.html) (Hey, while reading this I discovered that Gary Puckett is from Hibbing.)(You know, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.) (Wow, Bob Dylan AND Gary Puckett) (Ok, I admit it, I used to love Gary Puckett and the Union Gap)(there you have it, you got the truth out of me now)

I've been to the area of what's left of the old town before they moved it, and it's kind of eerie. There are cement sidewalks with walkways up to steps, and then no house there. There is a big set of steps up a hill that went up to the library, and then no building there. The gas lights and sidewalks are still standing after all this time, and lots of steps and some cement blocks that had served as foundations. It's freaky. Like an empty Hollywood set or a ghost town or something. Every year Hibbing has an art festival called "Mines and Pines" and they have it in that part of town that used to be the old town because of course it's a big empty area. (it's next weekend, I'll be there spinning...)

This is a picture of the old mine and the lake made when they mined out the ground (I think that's how it goes, I am not "from the range" and this is all new to me). This is on the Ironworld grounds and I took the picture from the trolley. Anyway, if you happen to be a mother, I want to ask you, can you imagine letting your kids just run around and play in these woods all day and swim in this lake? I can't imagine doing that, but they did. Now that I think about it, I suppose it was probably safer than letting them ride their bikes three blocks to the store.

In closing, here is my sweet girl, Narda. She used to be the head mouser on a New Jersey farm, and now she is the quintessential contented house cat in Minnesota. She is slowly losing her Jersey accent. Just this morning I swear I heard "you betcha" once or twice.

You can see a bigger view of any pictures by clicking on them. Please leave a comment!!! Keep on spinning!!!