random threads

In the past week , I have been whipping out more 6″ swatches for donation to the Baskets of Yarn retreat this coming weekend, where we will be sewing the swatches into blankets to donate to charity.  I played around with a number of dishcloth patterns, then started swatching interesting patterns in my stitch dictionaries. Today, I’ll share the three latest I’ve knit from free dishcloth patterns. For most of these I cast on anywhere from 21 to 25 stitches to get “about” a 6″ square end result.

First up, the completed Bee Stitch Cloth, downsized to a 6″ square (should have cast on a few less stitches):

Next, the Open Star Dishcloth, again downsized. I didn’t cast on quite enough stitchs for this one, so when it ended up a bit too small, I added a round of single crochet in the purple to get it closer to the 6″ square.

This is the Three and One Checked Cloth pattern, and I think it turned out quite well. I plan to knit this one again. The pattern was easily memorized and doesn’t need edge stitches to lie flat.

I have not been knitting any major projects in January and February–just the plethora of hats, in preemie and adult sizes. Another charity project I’m supporting is 6″ squares which we will join into blankets at the Baskets of Yarn retreat (in 9 days!).  I have two swatch squares finished, and one more on the needles. I’m using up leftovers I had of dishcloth cottons.

The stitch patterns are a basic knit-purl checkerboard:

The same Honeycomb Cable as used in my Honeycomb Beret pattern:

And the one on the needles now is the Bee Stitch Cloth from Knitting Pattern Central.com :

It sure looks like this pattern is. This is the latest dishcloth, from Dishcloth Boutique pattern, Bamboo Cloth Variation 1 here. It does make a thick, textured cloth, that does look good on both sides. I will admit no blocking has been tried to remedy the biasing. I did try to straighten it out as much as possible before the photo was taken, but its natural tendency is to be a parallelogram, not a rectangle. Yarn was Sugar ‘n’ Cream in Country Brown Ombre, a nice homey darker color.

I stumbled across two new patterns (new-to-me at least) for dishcloths, so have squeezed a few dishcloths in as a respite from 76 stitch socks on size 0 needles. First I knit the DW dishcloth–Double Woven, or Darrell Waltrip if you prefer. This was knit in Sugar ‘n’ Cream “Summerset” color.

Then I followed that up with the Bee Stitch dishcloth, knit in Peaches & Creme “Lemon-Lime”. I prefer the Bee stitch cloth, as it is thicker and based on garter stitch vs the DW that is based on stockinette.

I’m also working on another one tonight, called Bamboo Cloth Variation, pattern here.  Photo to come when it is finished.  I’m using a dark variegated color of Sugar ‘n’ Cream, called Country Brown Ombre that I picked up at Hobby Lobby last weekend.

I have a large plastic tote for just my dishcloth cotton yarns…awaiting my attention to become dishcloths. Well, there is new inspiration from Abagail at 1870 Pearl. She has two neat dishcloth patterns, the first is 4 Corners, inspired by Elizabeth Zimmerman’ Baby Blanket. There is a gallery of photos on her site here. She evens has a tutorial if you have trouble with the garter stitch graft to finish the cloth here. If you need help with an invisible cast-on (I did), consult Eunny’s lace tutorial here. Her second pattern of interest is a Pinwheel pattern. Both patterns are available from the left sidebar on her blog’s main page. I’ll have to try that one too… I also ran across Trek doing two other patterns from Knitting in a Happy Camper, the Argosy Plain Jane, and Nubbins, both available here. So here’s my first Four Corners dishcloth, in Peaches and Creme color “Pink Lilacs,” but notice the “large” eyelets. Let’s call it a “design feature”, but I was not fond of them. Duh, this was short rowing, and from socks I know two ways to short row–wrap and turn or yarn overs. Her pattern did not mention wrapping the slipped stitches, so lemming that I am, I didn’t wrap. Or yarnover. Hence the “eyelets”. Version 2, at right, in Peaches and Creme color “Peppercorn Ombre”, with wrapped stitches and then picking up the wraps when knitting on the second half of each quarter. I did end up slipping the stitch the row before the directions said, so I did modify the pattern a bit. I also made the corners slightly less round to avoid the cupping I saw on the first one. I like the end result much better than my first attempt.

And here is the Pinwheel version, also a short row exercise, and I added the wraps to her pattern. I would like it a bit larger, so might try the next one on larger needles than the recommended Size 5 (US) or more stitches than the 17. It measures about 8″ in diameter.

I returned a week ago from my trip up north for my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, but have been taking a bit of a vacation from the internet. Now for the update. The weekend was very nice, with all four of us kids showing up, at various times over the weekend, plus my step niece and her son. The weather was wonderful, in the mid 70s, which was a great relief to this Carolina gal. We had dinner out at a restaurant on Friday night, an ‘indoor’ picnic on Saturday night, a coffee hour reception after church on Sunday, and then Sunday dinner at home. I flew home on Monday afternoon.

I did get some knitting done while sitting around talking with relatives. More ballband dishcloths. I did gift some to my sisters, mom, step niece, cousin, etc., but I still have a healthy supply.

Mom showed me all the preemie caps she had knit recently. She knits them for several different charities, and sometimes does booties also. Most of these were knit with some acrylic boucle yarn I had gifted her. She’s pretty productive. During the weekend, at times, my mom, my sister and I were all knitting. Mom on a cap, my sister on furry scarfs for church craft sale and me on ball-band dishcloths.

I’m still knitting dishcloths in spare moments. Garterlac #2 is done (in Midnight Magic from Sugar ‘n’ Cream) and #3 is half-way done in what is called “Gumdrops” (Peaches & Creme cotton).

Too much rain here–I need to buy more bark nuggets for my yard, as a good portion have floated down the driveway. Anemones are getting ready to bloom. I’ll try to get a pic when they do. Still hot and muggy. I can’t wait for cooling weather in late September or October. But first, I will have five days off to help celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding annivesary on September 2nd. I’ll be heading back to the homestead in Michigan.

I’ve found a new intriguing dishcloth pattern, from Dave of Criminy Jickets, called the Garterlac Dishcloth. I had to break out my ‘knitting backwards’ skills and even add to it, by doing a knit in the front and back of a stitch backwards. I got the swing of it. I need to block the dishcloth, and do an even-looser cast on than my usual Twisted German caston over two needles. The size could be a smidge bigger, this one ended up 9″ square, using 8 stitch entralac stitch sections. Starting cast on was 24 stitches.

I’m hoping work will be quieter this week. One person I was covering for last week is due back tomorrow, yay!

Sorry I have been super busy with covering for people out at work this week so haven’t been able to post. Covering for people means I am on call day and night. Even got called 12:40 am this morning but I was sound asleep and missed it. I haven’t been able to knit much this week, but did get an hour or two tonight to finish my latest ball band dishcloth, this one in Sugar ‘n’ Cream in Summer Splash (blue, green, lime) and Hot Blue.

Miss Emma got her most recent ACTH test results and the reading were up, but we’ve decided to stay at 50 mg Trilostane per day for two more months and retest since she seems to be holding her own and I see a little new fur growth on her head where it was shaved last November for her cat scan.

I hope to get caught up on my Sampler M knitting tomorrow, have two patterns to knit up.

What else but more on ball-band dishcloths. I am now working on #8, and have adopted some refinements of the original pattern, with information from MD KAL here on doing an attached 2-stitch i-cord edge. I’m casting on 43 stitches, 2 for the i-cord at each end. And doing 6 total repeats of the 12 row pattern.

Here’s a closeup of the i-cord edge on #7, made with Sugar ‘n’ Cream Playtime and Hot Pink. Bright, just the way I like it! This one is mine.

I’ve also settled on the Twisted German Caston, which I learned from the photos here. And I prefer the purled Russian Cast off for a-close-to-matching edge, see here. It makes a nice stretchy edge.

I’ve charted the ‘Improved Ball-Band Dishcloth’ pattern in Knit Visualizer. Click on the thumbnail to go to a larger version you can print out. You may need to click on the larger image to enlarge it once more so it is clear to read.