Another Big Dotty and Some BallBand Cloths

Never has one book of patterns captured my imagination as much as the Mason Dixon Knitting book. Yarn and thread have fascinated me since I was 6 or 7 years old. I learned to knit before I was 10 years old and learned to crochet as a young teenager. My collection of fiber related books is adequate, but not small. My collection of patterns obtained from online is likewise not lacking in size. This book ranks right up there with some of my favorites.

This is Big Dotty 2, completed. I used a scrap of Yellow for the background stitches. I don't know if it P&C or S&C. The blue is P&C Bright Navy. I had more fun making this cloth than the others.

As a rule most of the Big Dotty cloths are measuring about 6-6 1/2 inches wide and 6 1/2-7 inches wide.

Here are some Ball Band Dishcloths I have made from this same book. This one is made with same Yellow used in Big Dotty 2 and S&C Spring Meadows. This is the one time I used the number of stitches specified in the book.

This is the second BallBand Dishcloth I have made. It is made of P&C White and Peppermint. It was deliberately made smaller than the pattern called for. The motivation to fit the wants and needs of my household. It measures approximately 6 1/2 inches square.

Finally!!

I finally got loose ends woven in on some dish and wash cloths today. It feels like a major accomplishment to have done this. It is one of my least favorite tasks to do in the entire world.

These first pictures are done using the Big Dotty pattern from the Mason Dixon Knitting book. I used # 10 1/2 needles for rows 1, 2, 9, and 10. The remaining rows are made on size # 8 needles. This results in the front stitches not pulling, thus creating a fabric that tends to lie reasonably flat.These are purposely made small to suit my hands.

The on the left is made from P&C Pink and Light Grape. The one on the right is made from P&C Gumdrop and Grape.

Yarn, Links and Dishcloths

The past couple of days have been very interesting. I have been in dish and wash cloth making mode for the past few weeks. This week has been no different. I am in the process of making a Big Dotty cloth using Sugar n Cream Gumdrop and Hot Orange. There will eventually be an inverse set. This first one has Gumdrop as the front color and Hot Orange as the back color. It will be so pretty. It is only about a third of the way completed but that's because I made a mistake on it yesterday and frogged it. I restarted it this morning. Once it is done and loose ends are woven in I will post pictures of it here. It is fun combining bright colors in ways I have never had the courage to do before. For the present, I am making only Big Dotty dish and wash cloths. The contrast of textures: smooth on one side and a bit less smooth on the othe, is appealing to me. I like way they look when using two colors in the way the pattern uses them. There are other patterns I want to try, but they can wait for now. My yarn stash is very slowly becoming smaller. It seems to be taking a while though. Making dish and wash cloths is not the quickest way to deplete it....It's summer here in the Midwest which means heat and high humidity. It's easier and much more pleasant to make smaller items using natural fibers in this weather, even with air conditioning. I never knew there was so much to learn about blogging. It took a few times to find the template that has the basic style I want. After finding it, I played around wit the side bar and messed it up so badly the easiest thing to do was start all over. Now it looks the basic way I like it. It needs a few more links and buttons, but those will come in time. Thanks to Lisa at Calming Seas , I now know how to post buttons onto a blog. It was so kind and helpful of her to teach me how to do that. It was a fun thing to learn.

Busy Day

Wow!! This has been a super busy day. The first part of the morning was spent learning to re-size and crop photographs. It was fun to play around doing this. I have spent a lot of time today reformatting this blog and have finally chosen to stay with this template after some experimentation. It is working out quite well. More links need to be added, but that might have to wait for another day. Actually it will be a work in progress ( aka WIP for those who don't what it means ). I have been on a dish/washcloth making spree using the Big Dotty pattern from the Mason Dixon book. Most of them need to have loose ends woven in before pictures get taken. Once that is done, I will post them here. They were originally all going to be used for dishcloths, but Big Dotty # 1 got used as a washcloth last week. It was a fantastic combination of texture on one side and softness on the other, in my opinion. I spent a little time today working on one in purple and pink. It is the second of a 2 cloth set.

One of my favorite places to visit is the Mason Dixon KAL site. I always seem to get new ideas when visiting there. This is great because I have lots of cotton worsted wt. yarn to use and am not the most creative person when it comes to choosing color combinations. I appreciate seeing what others do.

On The Road Again

Finally......I am on the road again!!! My van is repaired and home once again. It's strange how something so commonplace as a minivan can make such a differnece in one's life. Mine is nothing special in the scope of life, except that it is mine, well, really ours. But the point is it is wheels I can drive. YES!!!! I wonder just how much knitting or crocheting will be done now....Oh well..It will even out in the long run.

Big Dotty # 2

Ok, so I don't have all the fine points of this Blogging stuff down yet. I am working real hard on it. Somehow I wound up with two identical pictures and can't figure out how to get rid of one of them. At least I am able to use the scanner to post pictures of my work. Yeah!!!!! That's progress.

This is Big Dotty #2 using pattern from the Mason-Dixon Knitting Book.

This time I started off using size 10 1/2 Boye needles and switching to size 8's when switching colors. Oh, the colors are P&C Bright Navy and some a scrap of yellow. It looks much neater than the first Big Dotty dishcloth.

Like I said earlier, this is an obsession...or is it an addiction?

Big Dotty # 1

This is a picture of my first attempt of making "Big Dotty" from the Mason Dixon Knitting book into a dishcloth. I used a size 8 Boye needle to start and Peaches & Cream Yarn. After the first several rows it dawned on me to use larger needles for the red rows. I changed to size 10 1/2 for them and the result was a better looking dishcloth. The portion at the top is really the cast on edge and first few rows. This is not the best picure, but wil do for the moment. As you can tell, I still practice making the sides look neat when carrying colors up the side.....Gee, I guess that's an excuse for making more dishcloths. LOL!!

June 20, 2006

My First Experience With A Blog

This is exciting!!! I have been thinking about doing this for a long time. The impetus for doing this is all of the knitting and crocheting I have been doing.

At the first of the year, I promised DH and DS I would not buy any more yarn this year until I had used up the equivalent of one 16 gallon tote of yarn.....I blew that one a long time ago, but am still conentrating on using what is on hand. Progress has been pretty good so far. I have only bought yarn a few times this year., which is not bad for me. the frist couple of times it was on sale...The yarn called my name and said it was mine. LOL!!! This last time, I went looking for some bright colored cotton yarn to go along with what is on hand. The motivaton was knitting dishcloths. Yes...That's right. I am knitting discloths. The Mason-Dixon Knitting book that I had requested from the library became available. It has some great patterns in it. A couple of them have caught my fancy...Actually, they have become an obsession.