Reduce, Reuse

I've finished all the knitting and weaving of ends on Mr. Greenjeans (aka Mr. Shortypants) and I have to tell you--it was a little hairy there at the end. I used absolutely every spare inch of yarn that I could and its still short-sleeved and very cropped. Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to block it like crazy to get the button bands to meet. In addition to unraveling my gauge swatch, I also cut off all of the longer ends that were hanging from joining the new ball or picking up stitches and knit with those as well. I actually had to unknit a row on the second sleeve because I didn't have enough yarn left for the bind off. Talk about cutting it close!

But anyway, its all done and ready to be blocked and have the button sewn on, which leads me to the story I really wanted to tell. I stopped by Michael's today to look for buttons. I could have sworn that Michael's used to sell both fabric and buttons, but I couldn't find either at my local store. What I did find were these super cute knitting bags. I was originally drawn to the fabric colors thinking they were regular tote bags and probably would have gotten one anyway, but the fact that they're designed to be knitting bags and have so many pockets just sealed the deal. I got the carry-all traveler and one of the yarn travelers. I usually keep my knitting projects in individual ziplok bags (which I end up replacing periodically once my needles start poking holes in them), so I'm glad to try out these reusable containers. Since I was already buying stuff, I also picked up some wool-ease. I'm dying to make Juliet and I didn't have any chunky weight yarn on hand and how can you beat the price of wool-ease?

After all that, I still didn't have a button for Shortypants and you know what? I came home and looked in my button stash and found the perfect one.

But you know, I might have missed out on those cute bags if I'd just started in the stash.