Monday, April 3, 2006

Bean Counting

Back to the quotidian and bean counting. With help, I carefully investigated the box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from Good Girl Purl and discovered that it contained every flavor listed but one. (In the course of photography, a few cherry, green apple, and buttered popcorn beans magically disappeared, but you get the idea.)

Almost every flavor of bean

Top row: Bacon, Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger, Buttered Popcorn
2nd row: Cherry, Cinnamon, Dirt, Earthworm, Earwax
3rd row: Grape Jelly, Grass, Green Apple, Lemon Drop, Rotten Egg
4th row: Sardine, Soap, Toasted Marshmallow, no Tutti-Frutti, Vomit

No one has been brave enough to try the more unusual flavors.

The beans gave me a brain wave. A couple years ago, I did a favor for a Japanese colleague and she did the obvious (to her, anyway): she gave me a narrow length of unhemmed cotton cloth. Although machine-made, it's a traditional handloom size, about 34 cm (13.5 in) wide and 90 cm (35.5 in) long, with neat selvedges and a charming edamame (soybean) print. I finally know what to do with it: while others have been busy deciphering the mysteries of the Ferragamo bag, I knit up a SoHo Sling*. The bean print will make perfect trim and pockets. And the flower pin from Good Girl Purl is the perfect spring accessory for it.

Soho Sling in process

The pattern appears in Bags: A Knitter's Dozen, but I got it as a freebie at Knit Out New York. Basically, the bag is a knit tube as tall as it is wide, with the top zipper rotated 90 degrees from the bottom seam (which forms a tetrahedron, if you must know).

Knitting the tube was basically mindless. I used a jumbo ball of crochet cotton that had been languishing in stash, Aunt Lydia's Denim, tweaking the pattern to make a bigger bag in a smaller gauge than specified, casting on 140 stitches. The crochet cotton made a somewhat coarse fabric with a soft drape – a strange combination of characteristics that would be horrible for a sweater, but is just right for a sling bag.

There will be a brief pause in assembly whilst I find the right zipper, lining, interlining, and findings. The bag in the pattern is not lined, but bean-counter that I am, I prefer a more finished turnout.

* For those who don't know New York City, SoHo stands for South of Houston Street, Houston being pronounced house-ton, not hyus-ton. It's one of the trendy parts of the city. The fabulous Purl and its new sister store, Purl Patchwork, are in SoHo.

8 comments:

Stephanie said...

You're too funny. I can just see you counting the beans. :) For some reason the idea of Bacon flavored candy just grossed me out. I couldn't get past that gross out to even think about Vomit flavor.

Anonymous said...

LOL. Alternatively, I suppose one could say the beans have been Sorted, if that seems more canonical.

This happened because an incautious taster tried a buttered popcorn bean (comment: "EUW! It tastes like a buttered popcorn jelly bean!") and demanded all beans be Sorted. Mysterious selective disappearances followed.

It just goes to show how important it is to READ. ;)

Anonymous said...

Yeah! I was thinking the flower was perfect for a spring purse! I am so glad to see you agree. Now I have to make myself one!
As for the Bertie's Botts... the Pirate and I got some right when they came out and immediately started daring people to eat them. Ended up having to try a few ourselves. I believe the Pirate accidentally tried an earwax and almost lost it. Grass and Dirt taste remarkably like grass and dirt! HAHAHA!

Mia said...

I can honestly say that I have tried the following flavors -dirt, grass, black pepper, and sardine. Let's just say that the grass was greeny, dirt was ?!?!, and the last two left such an awful taste that I refused to try any more of the fflavors. Although, I have heard that booger isn't too bad but they guy who said this has very questionable taste in food to start with...

bethanie said...

Grass was ok. Dirt was icky. Booger really isn't bad - it doesn't taste like much.

alison said...

Okay, so am I the only one who just ate the beans out of the box without looking? I was watching the movie, you know!! They're all pretty true to their name. Vomit is definitely the worst. I ran out of soda and had to stop eating the beans just in case I got a vomit one again.

Ooooh, love that flower pin! It's going to be great on that bag.

Tracey, in MI said...

my sons would resolutely confirm the 'AUTHENTICITY" of each disgusting flavor.....

I'll stick with chocolate, thank you very much..


although--- I have to admit- my kids think vosages haute chocolates--- are disgusting--- but I love them!
http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/detail.aspx?ID=956&CategoryID=423

Anonymous said...

The black pepper is interesting but the gross ones are really gross be prepared when you try them.