Diane made an organic cotton cotton shopping bag, which reminded me of that red hemp I bought a couple of years ago when I was so sure I wanted to knit a stretchy string bag. I'd gotten all excited about a pattern and spent some time tracking down the exact yarn it called for. I don't know why -- I never go out and buy the exact yarn a pattern calls for.

But this time I was determined to have the hemp, and it had to be red. I ordered four skeins so I could make the large size, because bags should be large. The yarn aged in my stash for a while before I cast on and discovered that the stupid pattern wanted me to cast on a whole bunch of stitches and join them so I could knit the whole bag in the round and then sew up the bottom later. I wasn't going to do that. A seam at the bottom of a big stretchy bag sounded like a very bad idea.

So my pretty red hemp sat and aged some more. And then Diane made her bag and I thought about digging it out again, and a string bag knitalong got started, and I read stories about knitters churning them out like they were ballband warshrags or something and the hemp was exactly where I thought it would be and now I'm knitting a bag.