Dishcloth Fun!

I am trying to blog twice a month, but so far I have failed for March by only posting once! The horrors! :)

Anyway, I spent a while attempting to design a hanging dishtowel based on the VanDyke Lace Panel cloth by Maile Mauch. It is a beautiful pattern, but I just haven't quite figured out how to work the top decreases in a flattering way. So I will keep working on it.

In the meantime, what have I been knitting? Well, I had made some dishcloths for my Grandma as an Easter '08 present. I decided that I would make her some more as an Easter '10 present. But what color scheme to use this time? Well, in the interest of amusement's sake, in the "Yarn" forum on Ravelry, I had come across a thread about "colorways that make you want to stab your eyes out," which happened to be in regards to the Peaches & Creme colorway, Juanita Rose. So I dug my cone of Juanita Rose out and decided that would be the dishcloth colorway that I would use for this year.

I am going to do a total of four cloths, and so far I have picked out the standard Grandmother's Favorite, but am using the pattern with Pointy Corners (Ravelry link) because I think it looks better, the standard Feather & Fan that I have done many, many times, the Eyelet Rib pattern (another favorite from Maile Mauch!), and for my last one I am not sure yet on what I will pick, but I am thinking this might be the time to attempt the infamous BallBand. I am not sure what coordinating color I will use to go along with the BallBand, but I am thinking either shrimp or tea rose (tea rose is looking like a good option since I have a partial ball that needs to be used up, lol!) :)

Anyway, I will post pictures once I am done with all of them!

Yay, I'm back!

I really haven't posted in a while, but I haven't done a huge amount of knitting lately. :)

As for the lovely lace scarf, I re-wound the yarn and put it away for now. I really am going to start working on it, but just have not motivated myself yet to re-cast on. So short of casting on and knitting like mad 24/7, I won't be wearing a lovely lace scarf on Easter. I'm guessing that the 24/7 knitting isn't going to happen, so c'est la vie. :)

As for my crochet project, it is coming along slowly but surely. The hook really is hard to get used to. But like I said, I have quite a while to work on this, so I'm just doing a little bit at a time.

In the meantime, I keep pretending that I am organizing my craft room. By organizing, I mean I've put a couple of my COTW patterns into plastic sleeves and then into my binder. Aside from that, I might have moved a few skeins of yarn into various boxes, but the room still looks kind of disastrous (yarn everywhere!). I guess I can give myself a pat on the back though, the closet is still organized (all of the yarn in the closet is in a bin or box).

However, while I was "organizing" my craft room and adding patterns to binders, I found a bunch of dishcloth patterns that I printed out over the last few years, but didn't print out a copy with a picture. I looked at those as a "mystery" knit and I looked at the skeins and skeins and cones and cones of cotton yarn I have and figured that the "mystery" knits would be fun.

The first "mystery knit" I picked out was the Lilacs on the Veranda cloth. Since it's a lace pattern, I decided to pick out a solid color, so I used up about half a skein of Peaches & Creme in Tea Rose.

The pattern is not difficult at all, especially now that I've mastered the ssk. :) I think this pattern would work well in a variegated or ombre yarn, but I wanted to see how it looked in a solid. I may do this one in an ombre should I ever want to give this as a gift set or anything.

The next "mystery" knit I picked out was the Waterfall Bubbles. For this one I picked out a variegated that has been sitting in my stash for a while, the Peaches & Creme Newport color scheme. This is a really pretty ombre of burgundy, navy blue and tan.

However....as beautiful of a color scheme as this is, I really should have picked a solid to show off the lace pattern. I am giving serious consideration to using this pattern for a lace scarf with real lace yarn sometime (okay okay okay, after the AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf is done!). I did like the cool pooling that happened though.

So that's what I've done in the past week or so.

After I finish this post, I am going to start working on the Vandyke Lace Panel cloth, but adjust it to be hand-towel sized as a gift for a friend's parents. I am also going to knit up a cloth and do an accompanying Jonathan Livingston Seagull cloth too. Since this is going to be a gift, I am using Peaches & Creme Ecru, a nice neutral shade. One I have finished the Vandyke Lace Panel towel, I will post my modifications to make this "towel sized."

Maybe after this is done, I will get around to starting up my AlpacaSilk Fern Scarf.....