Knitter friend, Ronnie posted a photo of a slave around 1865 spinning on a walking wheel.

The further caption on this photograph stated:Value of Work

“Check out the spinning wheel, you had to spin yarn before you could weave it into cloth to sew a garment. That’s why most people had only 1 or 2 outfits. Everything was so labor intensive.”

Given all the fine gauge work, and the sewing I’ve been doing on my fine cotton bag, it started me thinking about how I place value on my possessions.

When I can go into an outlet store and walk out with a bag of clothes for under a $100, I have to admit I don’t value those items of clothing as much as I might a hand knit pair of socks, even if the $3 pair of socks is more comfortable to wear.  If one of my hand knit socks gets a hole, it goes in the to-be-darned pile…the same hole in a $3 pair goes in the trash

My first job out of college was doing finances for a large chiropractic clinic and one of the doctors there was incredibly successful (monetarily)…and honestly,  he wasn’t the best doctor a the clinic.  But one of his theories was that every one of his patients had to pay something for their chiropractic visit…even if it was just $1.  The most destitute and the most well-insured patient for this doctor ALWAYS had to pay something.  His comment when I asked him about it was, “People value what that pay for, and get better health results as well.”  I have to admit, he was right on both counts.

I might modify his theory a bit, so say, that people value that which requires them to invest more.

Current Knitting

Knitting on fine-gauge cotton, on US1 (2.25 mm) needles has reminded me of why I enjoy such fine, detailed work and why I usually value the end result a bit more than other projects.

The bag itself is finished, including having the lining sewn in and so is the first of two straps I’ll sew on to it.

For the straps, basically, I’m knitting the strap lengthwise (370 stitches), both front and back with purl fold rows on each side and lining it with cotton batting (used for quilting.

And to make sure it doesn’t stretch, I’m also sewing three rows of contrasting orange thread lengthwise along the strap.

Once the second strap is finished, I’ll sew both straps to the bag and add a zipper opening at top.