Just enough washcloths

Right now washcloths are just the right lunch-hour knitting for me. I'm on the finishing stages of the three Cotton Candy dresses, and the next Niece Blanket has gotten too big to fit easily in my (quite sizable) purse. So over the past week, I made these two washcloths out of another ball of Sugar'n Cream. First, a "Wavy Ribs" pattern:

I think this pattern works pretty well with this colorway, a Sugar'n Cream Stripes, and apparently its name is "Tie Dye Stripes.". Second, a "Ribs and Welts" pattern:

This one takes more paying attention to the directions than I usually prefer for lunch-hour knitting, but I like the end result. I've made both of these patterns before, as Christmas presents year before last. Not sure where the patterns came from though - I seem to only have the photocopies to hand. I developed quite a collection of dishcloth patterns that fall, and I recently uncovered the cache of copies of my favorites.

But back to the "Ribs and Welts" -- This was a "Super Size" ball of Sugar'n Cream, and I've been operating on the understanding that each of these balls can produce two washcloths. I had several yards left over from the washcloths I made during Reunion Weekend, so I wasn't concerned or paying much attention to my yardage as I neared the end of the second cloth from this ball. I definitely started paying attention on the last row, though.

I did not cut this yarn. This is exactly how much I ended with at the end of the cast off.
Whew.
You can see all the ends in this picture -- this is every bit of one Super Size ball.

I may need to pay more attention as I knit the "Climbing Latice" pattern out of the second half of the Summer Splash ball.

I added buttons and ribbons to the three Cotton Candy dresses today, and will be giving the two small ones away to my new nieces when I finally meet them on Sunday. Pat took my new camera with him on his weekend trip, so I'll have to borrow a camera to get finished pictures of them tomorrow.

Three days - three dishcloths

This weekend was my five-year college reunion. I love going to reunion with the wonderful ladies of the old Western College for Women, and I haven't missed one yet!
This year there was a call for people to bring old kitchen supplies so that the current students can have all the cookware they might want in the dorm kitchen. Since I've only had my own kitchen for not quite 5 years now, I haven't really accumulated much in the way of kitchen ware that I don't use anymore. So I knit them a couple of dishcloths instead!



I knit these while in reunion events this weekend out of one ball of Sugar'n Cream. Both knit on the bias, increasing one stitch every row until I felt it was big enough and then decreasing one stitch every row. Somehow the rates of increase and decrease look different, so I ended up with non-square dishcloths, but I figured it didn't really matter. On one I used yarn overs to create a little border and on the second one I did not. I love watching the variegated yarn change colors and stripe or pool. The colorway is Sunkissed, and the darkest blue here (not that you can tell from these pictures) is almost the right color to be Western blue. Just in case you're wondering, my new camera can indeed take better pictures than this; I just took these quickly in the ground floor corridor late Saturday night before I turned the cloths in to the collection box. They got a lot of cool stuff for the kitchen, including dish soap and cook books. The students should be all set next year!

I finished the two Western dishcloths before all the reunion events were done, so I knit another one. This is the advance guard of the Christmas Knitting.

That's a somewhat better photo. Also Sugar'n Cream, Summer Splash colorway, knit in the Bee Stitch from Leisure Arts' "Kitchen Bright Dishcloths." Again, you can see I'm not terribly focused on the idea of square. Which actually fits really well with being at a Western reunion.

I had to set aside the third Cotton Candy dress for a week, but am ready to get back to work on it at knit night tonight. Meanwhile, enjoying a rare afternoon off!

TA-DA!

I have received a new digital camera for my birthday!

I did not previously have a digital camera, so I am quite excited. I foresee much more regular blog updates now that I will be able to show my progress on a more regular basis!

My most recent finished object is my first charity knitting project. My church recently started a once-a-month knitting/crochet group, to make things for the local Family Resource Center. At about the same time one of the great church ladies gifted me some yarn and needles. Someone had given them to her, but she hasn't learned to knit yet, and was in a cleaning-out mode. So my first projects for the resource center will be from this yarn. The yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky, and the first pattern I've done is the Shepard Bulky Rainbow Hat from One Skein Wonders.

The whole thing is knit flat - the cable band in one direction, then the top picked up along one edge, and seamed together at the end. I love the way the decreases on the top spiral around.

Coming up next is an ear warmer, also cabled. This will be my first project with a provisional cast on. Luckily I took a little Crochet 101 class at the LYS last year and know enough of the basics.

I'm also working on my third of the adorable little cotton candy dresses. Good thing I have so many nieces to wear them! And I've started the blanket for this spring's first new niece. Posts about those items soon!

Clapotis revisited

In my post-blanket spring knitting, along with the baby dresses, I've also returned to working on my clapotis. I'm making this out of recycled silk yarn - the kind that is made from the ends left over from weaving saris. My college roommate gave me several balls of this yarn awhile back and I thought a clapotis would be a good use of it. The project had to go on hold when I ran out of the gift yarn. I had enough projects on the go that I hadn't been looking very hard for more of it for several years. Right after I finished Niece S's blanket, I saw some recycled silk on sale at the Rain Forest Site, so I snagged three skiens right away. I enjoy the random changes in this yarn -- thickness as well as color. Sometimes it twists back on itself and gets difficult, and I really have to work at the stitches to get them to drop all the way down. But generally this yarn keeps me amused.

The clapotis is going to be very large. It's already very large, and I've only dropped six stitches so far. I'm going to need far more than the three additional skiens I just bought. I'm already feeling that at some point I'll need to make another clapotis out of a lighter-weight yarn. Anyhow. It's nice to come back to this. Here's one more picture that the husband thought I should include because it's "artistic and sh*t."

I figure that on the occasions when he pays enough attention to the knitting and/or blogging to make a suggestion, I should encourage him.

Blankets over, time for dresses

Whew! That was a long time without an update. A combination of (1) having to borrow a digital camera (2) long time of no nice days for pictures and (3) work taking all my mental energy.

The Rylee and Sofia blankets were both done on time, given at the birthday parties, and greatly appreciated by the moms. They were not, however, done far enough ahead of time to get finished pictures taken of them. I've asked the moms to send me pictures but they, oh you know, have small children. So no holding of breath on that one. I'll get pictures of them up here eventually.

After making two big baby blankets between Christmas and Easter, it was then time to make little outfits for this spring's two new nieces. I decided on the Cotton Candy Dress designed by Celeste Pinheiro, which is in the book Knitting for Babies and Kids, edited by Jeanne Stauffer. This is the cutest book I ever did see. Since these two nieces are also cousins to each other, I'm going to make two matching dresses in different colors. Monday, April 13, I bought the yarn for one of them, started it on Thursday the 16th, and by Friday the 24th I had this:

Baby clothes in worsted weight yarn may be my new favorite thing. I'm making the twelve-month size because it's a little hard to crawl in a dress and this one would look so cute on a baby starting to toddle.

My first mini-foray into lace went well. Well, the pattern calls this "triangle lace" but it's more material than holes, so I don't know about that. Either way, it's an adorable little border.

This picture of the bodice and armhole might actually capture the color the best. I usually don't make things quite this pink, but that seems to be the direction my sisters are going with the baby things, so I'm happy to contribute. I think the next one will be an equally intense purple. I still have the neckline stitching and the sewing up to do, but this will use less than 4 skeins of Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Cotton (100% mercerized cotton) at 93 yards a skein.

I've also been working on some charity knitting and my clapotis again, those updates coming soon.

Borders

LOTS of progress on Rylee's blanket this week. I finished weaving all the ends in late Tuesday night; I did nothing but ends at Knit Night, and then I took the blanket in to work and wove in ends during my lunch hour, and again while we watched TV Tuesday evening, staying up a little late because I was so close. I finished the upper and lower borders yesterday and attached them. Now I have just finished picking up 260 stitches for one side border and I intend to have all the knitting and sewing in of ends done today. Then I'll need to do some blocking of the edges, and the blanket will be ready about a week and a half early! So there hasn't been much progress on Sofia's blanket this week, but I think I'm still in a good place with it.

Major progress was made yesterday in the constant Struggle Against Laundry. It was a wonderful preview of spring -- 72F, sunny and windy -- and I was able to hang clothes on the line outside, allowing me to do three loads in a day for the first time probably since September.

Pat is away this week. He and a couple of friends are taking a Spring Break trip all the way to Arizona to visit another friend who moved there not long ago. So yesterday when it was so nice outside, I walked to three different libraries in town and borrowed a bunch of books to keep me entertained this week. I've been hanging out in the Sun Room reading, knitting, and listening to podcasts. Now if only I could take the week off of work, too, and do this all week long.

Also with Pat away, I'll probably be spending more time at my mom's and I intend to borrow her camera to get pictures of the blankets. I may need to help her figure out how to get the pictures off her camera, but I'll get some pictures for the blog soon.

Ends and Strips, Farms and Freedom

I continue to be bogged down in weaving the ends in on Rylee's blanket. I'm still less than half done. We are now in the same month as the little guy's birthday, and I still need to do all these ends and make and attach the boarders - and then do THOSE ends.

I'm about half done with the fifth strip on Sofia's blanket. Each of the four borders on that blanket will be at least as much work as one of the strips. The pattern calls for five strips, but once I've got them done, I'm going to lay them all out and see if I want to make one or two more. I'm starting to think I probably won't, though.

I made a lot of progress on the Sofia blanket yesterday; I attended an all-afternoon conference about the future of farming. It was organized by an alumnus from my college, and was a really good experience. I got to meet a young hay farmer who's attending K-State, which was cool because my parents used to be hay farmers and my uncle teaches at K-State (Go Wildcats). I think John did a really good job with the conference. Then in the evening I attended a staged reading of a new play being directed by one of the faculty in my department. It's about Freedom Summer, and if the reading (three days after it was cast) was that good, I can't wait to see the full play in October! So I knit through both of those events and got quite a lot done.

Today I have to create lots of time for end-weaving. My mom and step-dad are out of town for a few days and Pat has agreed to steam clean their carpet while they are away. So I'll go over there with him this afternoon, set myself up in their Sunroom and watch the Major League Baseball Channel with my tapestry needle and scissors. That should help!