Wednesday, January 8
Knitting snacks
I've spent a lot of time at home lately. First, Christmas vacation
which meant decorations and baking and making decorations. Then the
weather! DD#2 was born when the old records were set in 1988 so once I
made that connection, it's been fascinating keeping track of the very
low highs.
Inevitably, there will be snacking. I do eat a lot but this has been about unconscious knitting. Kay Gardiner blogged about how ragged her dish cloths have become from every day use. Mine as well - I plan to repurpose them as weed cloth once our community garden gets going in the spring.
We all jumped on the warshrag band wagon a couple years ago and happily knit away with the cotton yarn to make piles of dish cloths until our drawers overflowed. Now they need to be replaced.
Ravelry! I have a small supply of Sugar n Spice and Peaches and Cream.
You might notice a dearth of my favored varigated yarn in the box above. I think there must be another bag hiding in the yarn closet. But I was at the store this past weekend and found that a cone of cotton is a very economical buy. A single skein is $1.47 but the cone is $7.97! I wonder how many dishcloths could I get out of a cone? Madness -
Inevitably, there will be snacking. I do eat a lot but this has been about unconscious knitting. Kay Gardiner blogged about how ragged her dish cloths have become from every day use. Mine as well - I plan to repurpose them as weed cloth once our community garden gets going in the spring.
We all jumped on the warshrag band wagon a couple years ago and happily knit away with the cotton yarn to make piles of dish cloths until our drawers overflowed. Now they need to be replaced.
Ravelry! I have a small supply of Sugar n Spice and Peaches and Cream.
I gravitate towards the variegated color ways but I don't like the
pooling that happens with knitting flat, back and forth. Dish cloths should
not be so precious as to alternate skeins of variegated yarn to create a
consistent color. To solve that dilemma, I found a round dishcloth that uses short rows
in its rays, or petals, to distribute the color.
Voila! Round dishcloth, a free pattern by Amy Carpenter. So, so easy;
so, so quick. I can make one in about 2 hours.
Details: 1 skein of either Sugar n Cream or Peaches and Cream, size 7 needle (circular, as it happens).
Funny difference between the two brands: Ravelry says that Sugar n Cream comes in at 97 yards (the yardage has always been missing from the ball band) and you can get 1 large dishcloth out of a single skein with just a tiny bit left over (CO 21 stitches). Peaches and Cream has approximately 95 yards. Those 2 fewer yards means you need to make the cloth smaller (as with Psychedelic, CO 19 stitches, but you still have a significant amount left) or add a design element of surprise (the Good Earth cloth below combined with peach melba surprise). There are more than 900 examples on Ravelry and I have to say I really do prefer the single variegated colorway. The mix and match look with this pattern is clunky.
Now I have a short
stack of new dishcloths and I might give some away.
You might notice a dearth of my favored varigated yarn in the box above. I think there must be another bag hiding in the yarn closet. But I was at the store this past weekend and found that a cone of cotton is a very economical buy. A single skein is $1.47 but the cone is $7.97! I wonder how many dishcloths could I get out of a cone? Madness -
