Things I Wonder about on Ravelry

So, when I am not knitting, I often browse Ravelry for ideas and inspiration. I don’t spend a lot of time on the discussion boards—I usually don’t have enough time for it, and I’d rather spend spare time knitting, anyway. But I do try to keep up with all the new patterns that are posted. Sometimes, I get to wondering about those, however.

My main wonder is how in the world so many people got fascinated by making dishcloths. Every few days someone posts 20 or 30 new dishcloth patterns. I am sure that, if it is an interest, an animal, a place or a good cause, you can make multiple dishcloths in their likeness. Or in some cases, sort of in their likeness. I was glad about this when I needed to make a dishcloth with cherries on it, because, sure enough, there was one that fit the bill. I just now thought, hmm, wonder if there’s one with my favorite on it, the pansy? Why, yes there is (this is the link to where you can pay your hard-earned money for the pattern, since I know some of you still aren’t on Ravelry. But why? It’s fun and free!). That's it in the illustration--not a bad pattern at all! I must say I am sorely disappointed, however, to find no dishcloth with a tuba on it! I mean, what’s a band parent to do? I was thinking of making tuba boy a cloth to clean his instrument with a tuba on it, geez! OK, so really I wasn’t, but this was actually the first dishcloth search on Ravelry to come up empty. So, if you are one of those incredibly prolific dishcloth designers, please get to work on a tuba cloth. Band parents and grandparents worldwide are just itching to get started.

My other wonder was the recent spate of hilarious 80s sweaters that one company recently uploaded. Actually, I think it’s cool to have all their patterns from the past available, because some of them have interesting colorwork on them, if you can look past the shoulder pads and gigantic hair (and bangs). Someone took a LOT of time to put together all those patterns! I wonder if they hired an intern to do them, or what? It makes me feel good that a few pattern companies have taken it upon themselves to upload all their library of past items—this will be great for anyone interested in making things from out-of-print pattern books. I’m just amazed that they have the time to do them.

My final wonder is how some of these people have the time to write so many comments on so many forums. I guess I used to wonder this about attachment parenting types and breastfeeding advocates. But it’s the same thing: how to you find time to do your hobby, parent your children, or whatever, when you spend 8-10 hours a day on bulletin boards? (Yes, I wonder this about some of my email friends and some incredibly prolific bloggers, too.) Maybe they all just type fast. Yeah, that is the answer. Sure.

I am not being grumpy about any of this, just wondering.

And back to the ever-fascinating topic of my knitting. Yes, I have been doing it. I went out at lunch yesterday and got two types of beads, the only ones I could find with holes that seemed large enough to handle two strands of Cash Irhoa. One set was wood and the other very interesting faceted glass beads that were blue with purplish-pink lining. The latter looked rather garish in the bag, but when placed on a background of navy blue Cash Iroha, they were absolutely perfect. They are not too big, nor too small, and not too dull nor too sparkly. I will be sure to get a photo of them.

Diamonds Dishcloths

Diamonds and Seeds Dishcloth
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I seem to have forgotten to post the exciting details of these two dishcloths, so I am back-dating this entry to make up for that. Gosh, I know dishcloths are sort of mundane, but they do good work, and they are great practice for knitting various patterns. And that's what these are.
Both are knit in pink King Tut cotton and took most of one ball (the remainder went into a crocheted square dishcloth that also used the cherry pink--imagine a square dishcloth and you'll have it).

First is the Diamonds and Seeds cloth. The diamonds are the Diamond Medallion pattern on page 139 of the Lace and Eyelets Harmony Guide. They alternate with panels of seed stitch for some nice texture. The fun part of this one was that I tried a new technique for SSK that was supposed to be more analagous to K2tog, but to tell the truth, it looked about the same. I read about it on the Texas knitting list for ladies only (sigh) so I guess I can find it amid the happy birthday, happy anniversary posts if I need it! So, this dishcloth served a learning purpose, anyway.

The other one is the Diamond and Eyelet dishcloth, based on the Diamond and Eyelet pattern on page 120 of the Lace and Eyelets Harmony Guide. I repeated it 3 times, with rows 1-3 added at the end for balance. This is not a difficult pattern, but I must have been stressed out, because I kept messing up the lace part. I found it a little funny, because I didn't mess up on the wedding shawl but a couple of times, and I made more mistakes on this little cloth. At least it was less work to remove a couple of rows on this!

Well, that's it for dishcloths for the moment. I am still going to make a few more. One more cherry one and then with some thinner yarn a few of my favorite Bathtime Blossoms patterns. That's because I like to knit those, so there! There's another flower-shaped one I may also do. Then, I think I will have made enough for my friend to use daily!

Thanks, and Triangles Dishcloth

Triangles Dishcloth
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Hey, thanks, everyone for your wonderful comments on the wedding shawl. I am so pleased with it, and with all the nice things you said. Last night I even found some dresses online that might go with it--garnet colored silk "suit" kind of formal attire. I'll just have to head down to the expensive wedding shop once I am working, and look at them.

I do have something like a job starting next week, teaching MS Office applications 3-4 days a week. Still hoping that the two jobs I want come through--they should, just are moving slowly.

The knitting right now is not as exciting as it has been, but still moving along. Here's one of the many pink dish cloths I have been knitting for a friend from my former life. Her kitchen is pink and has a cherry theme, so this cherry pink yarn had to be used. I am making up cloths using patterns in the new Harmony Guides. This one is the Eyelet Pyramids pattern, on page 176. I knitted 8 rows of garter stitch for the border and have 4 stitch borders in garter stitch. I cast on 47 stitches for the cloth. It's obviously not blocked. The nice thing about this pattern is that it looks pretty good on both sides. I like that in a dishcloth, though some of the ones I've made don't do that. An example is the Three Cherries dischcloth below, whose pattern I got off the Internet. I am not thrilled with this one, but I think I'll make another anyway, since it fits the theme. And yes, these two cloths are made with the same yarn. My camera just went weird with the cherry one and made it look orange.

I'm using random cotton yarn from my stash and some I got on sale at the LYS. After this I was supposed to start another Lace and Cable cardigan, but I think I have to knit 1/7 of a prayer shawl for our minister who is going on sabbatical first. I admit that I have never made one of those. I am hoping we can make it in Noro Kureyon or something fun. I just can't handle Lion Brand Homespun at this point in my life. It bothers my hands. Chuck's a nice guy, and taking his sabbatical to do some interesting liberal do-gooder stuff, so I am happy to work on something for him, and how long can it take to knit up one ball of Kureyon, anyway?

Tomorrow I will post another fine dishcloth from the Eyelet and Cable Harmony Guide.

Suna Buys More Yarn

Rio de la Plata
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I remember that I don't have a job, but yarn cheers me up. So, when I dropped by the Gauge LYS on my way to buy D&D stuff for my kids and more beads for the wedding shawl, I let myself get some new pretties. Here you see lovely Rio de la Plata sock yarn that I let Beccano choose the color of. Certainly it's bright and cheery. I also got Panda Silk in blues and, sigh, I succumbed and bought some Noro sock yarn. I'd been waiting to get some at my usual shop, but I don't think she's going to order any. It's certainly Noro-esque, rough and irregular, but the colors are very pretty. I've seen the one I got knit up (greens and pinks) and it is quite fine. Now at least I can give these yarns a try, if their numbers come up, heh heh.

At least I am on sock #2 of the Cherry Rib ones, so some day I'll get to pick a new sock yarn!

The Wedding Shawl is taking most of my knitting time. I got to the end of it, and since I bought three more tubes of beads, I decided to add one more repeat of the border pattern. It will make it very bead-filled on the bottom, and more important, a bit longer. From what I have read, this is not a really big shawl when blocked, so a few more inches may be good. I am looking for a nice lacy fingerless mitt pattern to knit and add beads to as an accessory. It may be chilly at the wedding, so this seems wise. And it will be a good use for the leftover yarn. Another idea would be to incorporate the motifs from the shawl into fingerless mitts.

When I don't have time to sit and work on the shawl, I am making some cotton dishcloths for a blog friend who has a pink kitchen with a cherry theme. I found the one cherry patterned dishcloth on the Internet (yay) so one cloth will have that. The others are some patterns in a Lily brochure that I am doing for fun, plus I made up a few based on Harmony Guide patterns, which I'll do next. I'll put up some photos soon as I have some. I am just using Sugar & Cream, nothing fancy.

Well, I have to get ready for a job interview. Yay for that.

Filigree and Blossom, and Book Reviews

Filigree
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I got the new book Knitting New Mittens and Gloves this week, and realized that my LYS had the right yarn to make the fingerless mitts on the cover. Besides that, I realized the shop was having its anniversary sale this weekend. So I got Nashua Creative Focus Cotton DK in both the cover red and the depicted grape purple. I was a bit weary of socks, so yesterday I sat on the patio, enjoying the weather, and started on a pair of the short version. I am almost done with the second of the pair (I got distracted uploading photos of my stash and finished items to Flickr so I could put them on Ravelry--this required uploading my new and wonderful Photoshop CS3 Extended that I got with staff discount at work, so time passed).

Anyway, these are weird little items, aren't they? They go super quickly, though, and actually are warmer than they look. I can wear them when my hands get sore from typing. I plan to make the longer versions in red, and I think I will use smaller needles. The pattern calls for size 6, and I used size 4, but my little bitty hands are still a bit small for the finished product. I'll try size 3 for the others. The pattern stitch is really fun. The only thing I don't like much is the finishing technique around the thumb area. I think I'd have crocheted an edge, and may do so on the second pair.

The Knitting New Mittens and Gloves book (by Robin Melanson) isn't as incredibly exciting and mind-bogglingly different as the scarf book in the same series, but there are some interesting patterns. Too many of them require finding and buying accessories and additional hardware for my taste. But, there are some easy ones and some hard ones, so there should be at least one or two patterns for you, no matter what your taste.

I've also finished a Bathtime Blossom in Anchor Magicline cotton. I do so love this pattern. The yarn is fun--if you get a chance, get it and make a dishcloth! The striping pattern is long, so it makes a fun effect. Note that on the washcloth, each "wedge" is mostly either pink or blue--that's just a lucky accident. I used size 4 needles and think 3 would have been better. I admit, it's the same ones I used on the mitts. They were sitting around.

I also managed to start the second sock in the Garden Path socks I am making using Jody's hand dyed yarn. I want to wear them, so I will be working on them when not in a bus. I'm saving the happy rainbow Perchance to Knit socks for the bus.

While I have a minute, let me tell you about the other book I bought recently (yay having a job so you can buy stuff). It's Knitting America, by Susan M. Strawn. It's one of those big coffee table type books, with lots of illustrations. I am really enjoying reading it, though. There is new information that Strawn has found, and lots of photos I have not seen yet, many of interesting pieces of old knitting. I love reading the history of knitting, and have probably bought every one of those books that's come out over the past few decades. This one is a great addition, and is wonderful to sit around and read when I need to rest my hands. A great birthday or other holiday gift idea!

And...one more thing. I got a new yarn yesterday at the LYS. I got enough to make a whole sweater, and a pattern for an interesting sweater that is a combination of knitting and crocheting. The yarn is Bouton d'Or Surya. It is very thin, probably fingering weight, though is is not a sock-type yarn--no bounce. It is solid and smooth and made of 55% bamboo and 45% soy. You would imagine that a combination of those two will be very soft, and it is. It's also slightly heathered, since we all know that bamboo takes color differently from soy (or at least NOW we all know that). I can't wait to knit and crochet with this. It is so soft and smooth. It comes mostly in pastel colors, so I got light blue--all the other colors really aren't for me. At some point, probably in the dead of next winter, I'll make the sweater (it's a spring one, so of course I will dawdle about it).

I hope that now I am back to a more regular schedule where I can at least blog 2-3 times a week!

And Now There Are Two!

Wandering Melody, Back
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I am still alive and knitting--the combination of the new job and a great visit from my father has led to no blogging time. I'll get more used to my schedule soon and blog better.

Anyway, lookee, here are the Wandering Melody socks. The yarn is pretty but I wasn't thrilled with the big stretch of greenish gold on the second sock. That color appears nowhere in the first one! But, they fit well and I am very happy with how the stretchy bind off worked out.

You will notice that I somehow managed to make the lines of YOs the same on both socks. I had fully intended to have it wander the other way on Sock #2. I really should have given #1 a glance at some point, huh? I did make the cables go the other way on sock #2. Well, maybe I will try this technique again some time.

I haven't gotten too much done other than bus knitting because of the family fun I had last weekend and earlier in the week. I have a few more repeats to do on the Bathtime Blossom I am making for mindless sleepy-time knitting, and I started a new bus-riding sock yesterday. It's just a plain one, but the yarn is nice: Perchance to Knit wool/cashmere. It is a very smooth yarn, feeling almost cottony. The color is Black Rainbow, which is quite festive--a lot of black with stripes of very bright secondary colors, almost day-glo. Because the yarn is so intense, these are simple, generic socks. The yarn came with a free beaded stitch marker, which was a nice touch. I am enjoying knitting with this yarn, after lots of more splitty loosely plied yarns.

I will try to comment on the new Knitty this weekend.

Still Here, Not Knitting Enough

I figured that on the first week of my new job, the knitting would suffer, and I was right.

The good news is that I do have bus knitting time. The bad news is that two rides' worth on my second Wandering Melody sock turned out to be slightly off-center, so I spent today's ride frogging a couple of inches of beautiful sock. I actually didn't take the knitting with me yesterday because I was so peeved at myself that I'd messed up on Wednesday. I do agree that the socks are nice, so I'll write up the pattern. I am intending to make sock #2 the mirror image of sock #1.

At home in the evenings I have been so incredibly tired. All I have managed to do is work a bit on a Bathtime Blossom dishrag in some pastel colors for the guest bath. Usually I can whip one of those out in not too long, but I am so brain dead that it is taking me longer than usual.

My dad will be in town this weekend, if he manages to make it here (flight canceled due to all the SNOW in his connection town, Dallas). I may have lots of time to work on finishing the orange sweater, or I may be busy on household projects and have no time. We'll see.

I am surviving the new job, though waiting for buses in the rain is already tedious, and my head is full of arcane mainframe commands. But, it's a living! I hope to have more to report next week!

Refresh My Memory...

Dishcloths for my sister
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Since neither project I am currently working on looks any different from a picture I already posted (that would be the beginning of my second green Walking Away Sock and the front of the surplice top, which has all the lace panel and about 1/3 of the first surplice done), I am sharing the only photo I can find of something that passes for a beginning knitting project: the dishcloths I made my sister for Christmas last year.

OK, so I made them from Schaeffer cotton yarn that retails at nearly $40 a skein, so they aren't beginner Sugar-n-Cream models, but they are simple knit-and-purl patterns. Loved the yarn, by the way. Made very sturdy cloths with a bit of sheen. All I can remember is that I had so much going on (sudden pick up in love life, for one) that it took me way longer to make 4 discloths than I had hoped--the Flickr site reveals I took this photo on December 25, so I must have not finished until the day I gave them away! I have leftover yarn enough for another, too, which would make the expensive skein actually crank out $4 dishcloths after all.

But, here is my dorky question. I got to yet another set of instructions (in the Nashua pattern book for the surplice top) telling me to decrease X number of stitches "evenly spaced" across the row. WHY can't they say "decrease every X stitches" so you'd know how often to decrease? Why do we have to figure that out for ourselves? And, have I forgotten the "magic" way to calculate this (I am just sure I read such a thing once). I know that if you decrease once on each end, that takes care of two of them. But what's the formula for figuring out how many stitches to put between each decrease?

Or, do they say this mainly because you have to do is somewhat irregularly? On mine if I knit the first two together and then K5, K2tog to the end, I came out with two few decreases. I ended up doing them on the next row, hoping the Knitting Police would not come by and see. I must have done that on the other side, too, but it was in June, so I forgot.

I am feeling a bit dim, but willing to learn (not willing enough to post this question to an email list, though).

I have a LOT of knitting time tonight and over the weekend, so I am hoping to make good surplice and sock progress. And I am working on the next beginning knitting teaching tips, too!

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UPDATE: Woo! Post and you shall receive! The kind and gracious Katie K has posted in the comments this helpful link to a calculator that will answer my questions (and yours, if you also wonder how to calculate decreases). Thanks to the Knitting Fiend for making this calculation helper, too. I just love the blogosphere and its helpful residents.