Just to prove that I’ve not been idle, here’s a new finished object to show off. This is a large-sized “buttonhole bag“.

It was knit with two strands of chunky wool yarn on size 15 needles. I’m not overly fond of fun fur and eyelash, but I thought a little bit would add a fun funkyness to the whole rather retro color scheme.

The top pic is pre-felting and the bottom is the finished product. (Click on either pic for the larger sized version.) I felted it in my front-loader (YEA!), and I’m glad to know that I can actually do that successfully. I could have felted it harder and lost all stitch definition, but as you can see from the bottom pic it’s hard enough to stand on its own.

I encouraged the top to roll because I liked that look. I still need to add a lining. The finished bag is large enough (about 17″ at the widest) to make a nice-sized project bag so I want the lining to include a few little pockets to hold sundries..

In other news, the grapes are ripening and I’ve picked several pounds to give away to friends. I managed to save almost all the harvest this year from the furry little black-masked bandits that have robbed me the last two summers. I grow the variety Himrod, and have two vines on an arbor over my back patio against the south side of the house. Because I’m on the north side of the hill, the growing season in my yard starts late and is slightly shorter than the valley floor. Himrod is an early variety, but I don’t usually have ripe grapes until the end of September. This year the abundant sun and warm weather helped them ripen about a week early. The good news is that the harvest usually extends for several weeks, so hopefully I will have enough time to deal with the crop.

My grapes grow under my usual gardening philosophy of benign neglect. The grapes get nothing: No water or fertilizer, no spraying. Nothing. I whack them back a couple of times a year to keep them from taking over the yard and tearing the house apart and I harvest the crop when it’s ripe. That’s it. The two vines, each the size of small trees, reward me yearly with bountiful crops of some of the best grapes I’ve ever eaten.