Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Water Bottle Bag for use with a Walker

I had fun today. I delivered a net water bottle bag to a friend who is currently using a walker and wheelchair while recovering from foot surgery.

I had to be a bit creative in netting this particular water bottle bag. The problem was that there was no place on her walker to hang a water bottle bag using one of the net handles I made before. All of those handles worked on the idea that there would be a hook, peg, knob, or something on which to hang the bottle in its bag.

The walker had none of the above-mentioned items. It only had metal bars that were permanently attached to each other.








To solve the problem I decided to start the bag at the bottom using 12 loops over a 1" mesh stick.

Once the bag was deep enough I made one long strip of netting, 33 rows worth of plain diamond mesh netting over a 1/2" mesh stick using half the loops.

Once that strip of netting was finished I went back and did the same thing to the other half of the loops.








Once the bag was made and the bottle placed inside, all my friend had to do was tie the long strips of netting around one of the metal bars on the walker and her water bottle could travel wherever she went.

She also found that if she were in her wheelchair, she could tie the netting strips together to form a handle that could then be placed over one of the handles at the back of the wheelchair.




The past few weeks have been very busy, but I was gifted with an hour each day to do crafts while I substituted for a co-worker out on medical leave. Of course it was at 6 in the morning while my daughter was attending early morning seminary, but, thanks to that daily hour during the month of March, I have almost finished the wonderful brown sweater I started last fall. The early morning gift is now gone as I am out of the Facilities Management office and back to cleaning the meetinghouse during that time.




I love the cable stitch on the front and sleeve. The cables were the reason I asked a friend for the pattern.











Just after I lost my early morning craft time I was able to block the sweater and sew the front and back to the sleeves. I needed to do that before I could finish the band. The pattern told me how to make the band but neglected to say how many inches to make it. I needed to measure from the bottom of one front; across the top of one sleeve, the back, and the other sleeve; and finallly down to the bottom of the other front. I figured it out, and the band is almost done. Maybe this week-end I will be able to finish the sweater.

I was also able to finish a pair of baby socks found in Cat Brodhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Now to decide which grandchild they will fit. Probably one of the grandsons. I know, to be fair I should make a pair for each of them. Then the granddaughters will want a pair also ... some people wonder how I get so many projects started.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No wonder you're so busy!

Leigh Ellen Rodriguez said...

Rita, I would love to learn to net after years of knitting and would like to start with making a small bag about the size of a tennis ball. Can you help me with a simple pattern with a gauge about the size that you use on your water bottle? thanks! Love your blog and website.

Rita said...

As you know from reading my blog, I am in the process of setting up some online netting classes. One of the first ones will be a bag class. The class will walk you through, step by step, how to net and how to create a couple of bags.

I hope you can wait just a bit until the class is available.