Well, what else am I going to do while I'm sick?

Argh. I thought I'd escaped the Ick that's going around. My boyfriend's been sick with a bad cold/flu type thing for a week, and I hadn't had any symptoms until just last night. I had to go to work today, unfortunately, but I left by lunchtime. I've spent a large part of the afternoon knitting, on and off. I've been making good progress lately. Although I'm still doing the same somewhat mind-numbing mesh, I've got a big push these days to really move on it. I think I'm getting that, "I want the finished product!" feeling. I may stay home tomorrow, too, so we'll see how far along I can get.

Wanton's got a brand new bag!

Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay! At long last, I have a new knitting bag!

I've had a few knitting bags in my time. The first two bags I used, I lost. Left them on trains or subways or wherever, and they never reappeared. I don't think I ever lost any seriously important projects in them, fortunately, but still, it sucked. Then I got a bag sometime in 2004 or very early 2005, which stuck around. It was made of thick, soft, lined fabric with a pretty botanical pattern on the top half. It had no closure and no real compartment except an open pocket inside. I brought it everywhere. I shoved it into other bags or suitcases during travel, sometimes. At other times, I packed it with way more stuff than it could really hold. It got wet. It got dirty. It was washed. It got dirty again. Bits started to unravel or tear. Recently, it had gotten to the point where I was actually embarrassed about carrying it around with me because it was such a wreck. I did some research, and decided that The Bag For Me would be a Swift, by Tom Binh. Go ahead, Google it--you can read all the details there. Suffice it to say, the thing appears to be SO sturdy, and looks SO polished, that I fell in love at first sight. It took a few months, though, for the color I wanted to come back into stock. As soon as I saw that it had been restocked, I ordered one. This time of year is not long after I get Christmas and birthday present money from my parents, and I'm due to get my tax refund any time now, so it's the perfect time of year for "damn, I NEEDED that!" purchases. The Swift came in today. So, friends, I have gone from the bag-lady bag:



to the Cadillac of knitting bags:



Now, how stylin' is that? I put my WIP and associated accessories into it, and retired my old bag to the trash. I'm so excited to knit from the Swift on the bus home today! I just recently had to do a major fix of some of the mesh on my Shipwreck (some dropped stitches and no lifeline--required a lot of patience, but wasn't TOO hard), and I just added a whole bunch of beads last night and did the Russian join this morning, so I'm going full speed ahead again.