2011 Washcloths - December Edition and Wrap-Up

I met my 2011 washcloth goal!

The December washcloth was knitted in the car on family visits in the week after Christmas. It's the fall-back pattern of the Ball Band Dishcloth (ravelry link) from Mason-Dixon Knitting, using Denim Sugar 'n Cream and a multi-color remnant (also Sugar 'n Cream) whose name I've forgotten.

I knit one washcloth every month for the whole of 2011, and in two months I knit two cloths. Christmas preparation was much less stressful with these little gifts ready to go, but I feel like I'm still not quite where I'd like to be. Two of the washcloths ended up as hostess gifts back in the summer, and one was sent as a prize in the Knitters' Brewing Company's Football Knitting contest (the store is on a break this week, so here's a link to their Ravelry group, too). I figure these are also good uses for my knitted washcloths, and ones I expect to run into again.

So for 2012 I am going to continue knitting washcloths, and increase my goal slightly. For this year, in addition to knitting one each month, I plan to knit one extra washcloth per quarter. So by the end of March I should have four washcloths, eight by the end of June, etc. I think 16 washcloths a year will be a good supply for the assorted little gifts I'd like to give.

2011 Washcloths - August Edition

Knitted in the second-to-last week of August (so early!) was a washcloth in Bee Stitch, a simple pattern using "knit one below." This pattern is the first one in a Leisure Arts booklet called "Kitchen Bright Dishcloths." This pattern plays nicely with variegated yarn, where most of the ten patterns in this booklet are better done with solids. The yarn used was Sugar n' Cream in the Buttercream colorway.

This month I joined the NFL Football Knitting sub-group of the Knitters' Brewing Company Ravelry group. The price of admission for that is one dishcloth -- I'll need to send a cloth to the person who wins week 7. I'm not sure yet if I'll make a special washcloth for that, or use one of the ones I've already made this year. I recently started listening to their Yarn on Tap podcast, and joined on a whim at the last minute. Hopefully this way I'll have some more people to talk with about football, since no one in my immediate family is remotely interested.

Fall, Football, and Knitting

I love this time of year. The leaves are starting to change, the new school year has all its promise, we're getting some beautiful weather and I get to start thinking about getting my sweaters out of the closet. We're getting close to baseball playoffs and the football season has started.
I've always been a big baseball fan, but before I became a knitter I was not a football fan and didn't even really understand the game very well. In 2004, I had just started knitting in earnest that summer and was really enjoying knitting while watching baseball games on TV. I knit Christmas stockings throughout the playoffs, but then the Red Sox swept the World Series and I was suddenly all out of baseball for five months. I needed more knitting-friendly TV, and thought perhaps football would be just the thing. 2004 was Ben Roethlisberger's rookie year in the NFL. Ben and I went to college together - by which I mean we were in the same school at the same time. So I decided to become a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers right about when Big Ben got the job of starting quarterback.
Football has really grown on me, and now I enjoy the game itself, and not just as background entertainment for my knitting time. This confuses both my dad and my husband to no end. Neither of them like football at all, and would feel their lives no less rich if no such game existed. Neither of them particularly like baseball either. I thought for a while this summer that I wouldn't get to watch football this season. The switch to digital TV has not gone smoothly in my town and I'm really not pleased with the situation. But recently we borrowed a better antenna from a friend, and we're getting quite a few channels again, and I've had football on TV each week so far.
This is the first year I've had this blog and a Ravelry account, and so far football season is being really good to both. These past several Saturdays and Sundays I've really caught up on my Ravelry updates, have sorted out my pictures and have started catching up here on the blog. As the season continues I plan to finish my two current projects (guitar strap and Secret Project), knit a couple of Christmas stockings for the new nieces, knit lots and lots of washcloths, start more socks, and hopefully work on the nieces' blankets and get started on a layette set for my cousin's baby-on-the-way.