Catching Green Fever

After being tossed to the side for Hats for Alex, I finally completed Elisa's Nest Tote while on vacation back in June. Though, technically I finished it before vacation started in the car during the trip there. Getting to your vacation destination is hard work and shouldn't really be counted as part of vacation.

Y'all remember it's humble beginnings as gift yarn from Aimee and finally turning into this mess sometime in April? May? Thus began the Elisa Nest Tote (surprisingly not a ravelry link).


Well, two months later it finally gets it's debut as a grown up market bag, which it most certainly is. This monster can hold about 15 massive tons of groceries. That strap will cut off circulation to your arm before you finish loading it up. Two 35lb containers of cat litter? Check. (Not that you would stick them in there anyway, because they come with handles and that would just be silly.) You can really get your green on that way.


But hold your horses there. It's not completely green-per say. While this yarn is a great new use for old plastics that would otherwise have spent time not rotting in a landfill some where. And is probably one of the most sturdy yarns for knitting up a market bag, getting it too that point probably isn't so green. A plastic recycling plant can use heat to break down plastics and repurpose them, but that's got to give off some really fowl gases. Recyclers can also use a chemical process to reshape old plastics. Chemicals are really magical stuff, don't get me wrong, but I don't remember there being a great way to dispose of them in general. Guess, you can't have your cake and eat it too, huh?


Pattern: Elisa Nest Tote
Yarn: Some SAFF yarn made from recycled soda bottles.
Needles: Size US 9 with my knitpicks exchangeable circs.
Mods: Not being a big fan of finishing details, because there’s nothing worse than finishing a project only to realize that you must now spend hours putting it together, I knit this in the round and seamed the bottom, rather than knit it lengthwise and have two side seams to knit/crochet up. I also knit it also longer than the directions (12 inches), which was ample to start with. Top of the bag is an attached i-cord. This makes the opening very stable, but not very flexible. I made sure to make my topping at least 24" in diameter. This allows me to fit some limited sizes in the bag. Sure it can hold a 35 lb container of cat litter, but I don't know if I could get it into the that opening. Instead, I tend to use it for tin cans, which reminds me of Mrs. Figg and makes me giggle oddly at the store, but I'm okay with that.

*excerpts from HPOTP: "The Dursleys fell silent. Harry listened to a jingle about Fruit 'n' Bran breakfast cereal while he watched Mrs Figg, a batty cat-loving old lady from nearby Wisteria Walk, amble slowly past. She was frowning and muttering to herself. Harry was very pleased he was concealed behind the bush, as Mrs Figg had recently taken to asking him round for tea whenever she met him in the street."

"Mrs Figg, their batty old neighbour, came panting into sight. Her grizzled grey hair was escaping from its hairnet, a clanking string shopping bag was swinging from her wrist and her feet were halfway out of her tartan carpet slippers."

"Mrs Figg raised the arm from which her string bag dangled and whacked Mundungus around the face and neck with it; judging by the clanking noise it made it was full of cat food."*