Stitching in the Storm and More Ways to Help

I’m loving this story I found on the Washington Post website about using downtime from the storm better known as Sandy to knit. It’s also about color, Kaffe Fassett and how knitting from someone else’s pattern can and should be a creative act.

I love it in part because I can relate when author Anne Midgette says hurricane knitting is “comfort knitting,” the same stitch repeated over and over, something that can be worked by candlelight. I had this same experience about four years ago when a much smaller storm robbed my house of power for three days (I was knitting a garter stitch sweater which Istill haven’t finished, but I’ve been thinking about pulling it out again).

I know a lot of yarn companies and individual designers and yarn crafters have been affected by the storm, and I wish you all speedier recoveries than a lot of people have gotten so far. I told a friend in Brooklyn that it’s ridiculously normal in the rest of the country right now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feel guilty about it. My heart is with you all as I stitch through the storm, too.

The other day I told you about one way knitters near and far can help with relief efforts: buying the Hurricane Socks pattern. Some other designers are donating money from pattern sales to the Red Cross; there’s a good list going at Metaphor Yarns’ Facebook page. If you know of more feel free to add them here.

[Photo: Sweetheart by Pauline Gallagher, via Ravelry]

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I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

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