dishcloths and home love

Here is the product of a couple weeks of (admittedly quite intermittent) knitting. Three dishcloths. I think this will more than sate the vague, once-yearly yarn cravings that descend on me each winter. I'm glad I picked such a small project this year, as it is one of the few I have actually finished. I have a whole basket of in-progress projects that have been "in-progress" for about five years. For some reason, knitting and crocheting doesn't seem to hold my attention for very long, though that may well be because I have never concentrated on it for more than about three weeks every January.

For these dishcloths, I used this pattern by Deb of Homespun Living. It was a fun pattern to knit, nothing complicated. I love the texture created by the knits and purls, and I am very proud of my stripes.

Around the same time I was knitting, I was re-reading Little Women. (Beth died. Again! sigh.) One passage in particular struck me this time as I read it. It's just before Meg's wedding, and all the sisters are working to get Meg's new house ready for the married couple. Amy drapes the curtains, Jo stocks the pantry, and Beth makes a stack of dishcloths, among other things.

"People who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small nest, from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table, was eloquent of home love and tender forethought."

I like that very much. That's why I make things. These dishcloths, humble and wonky though they may be, are indeed eloquent of home love.

dum de dum

Taking it easy over here. Loving late summer. Loving the South. Not doing a lot of crafting, and consequently not blogging much either. (I have trouble blogging when I don't have projects to share. Probably because I rarely feel that my life, though I love it, is particularly interesting to outsiders.) But here's a quick summary of the last few weeks:



1. We spent a lovely weekend camping in the Blue Ridge with our dad. I love these mountains so much, and was happy to learn that the North Carolina part of the range is as beautiful as the Virginia part.



(My daddy has twinkling eyes, doesn't he?)



2. I've read some fantastic books. The great thing about having a novel-gobbling sister is that she weeds out the bad ones, and recommends the good ones. Some of my recent favorites have been The Countess Below Stairs, Mariana, The Morning Gift, Venetia, and Here Be Dragons (links to Twin's reviews).

3. Twin has instituted a new diet and fitness regimen. She is a slavedriver, I tell you. She wants me to eat fruit! And veggies! Like, more than once a day! eeep. We've been biking and walking. Playing tennis. It feels good.

4. Have I mentioned my love of professional tennis? I loved the US Open, though the final outcome was pretty predictable. My heart just about broke for my boy Andy, who played with his whole heart and still couldn't find a way to beat that Swiss machine.



Did anyone else notice this young man? Juan Martin Del Potro from Argentina. He seemed somewhat familiar, and then I realized where I'd seen him. He's a Kouros statue, of course, who came to life atop his marble pedestal, walked right out of the Met, and picked up a tennis racket. It really is a shame he decided to put on clothes. Alas.

5. Slowly crocheting the Shawl that Swallows Time. It is now scarf-sized, and I'm tempted to just stop here. But I will persevere, and I'm sure I will enjoy it when I am 80 years old, which is probably about the time I will finish it.

6. We got Twin's pinboard made and hung over her desk. I love the dark background and the strip of vibrant print.

Our long long drought was broken yesterday by a brief and furious thunderstorm, following by a long drizzly soak. Today the weather is fresh and cool, and makes me think autumn might actually be on its way.

A wonderful weekend to all!

2 balls down, 10 to go

Orange or pink, whaddya think? I can't decide. I was going to try to figure out how to add one of those poll thingies to this post to see what y'all think, but it's too late tonight to puzzle out how to do that.

This is my latest crochet work in progress. No, not a scarf but a shawl. 2 balls of yarn=a scarf. 12 balls of yarn=a shawl. 12 balls of yarn, oh heavens, what did I get myself into? I had intended to finish this shawl in time to give it to my grandma for her 91st birthday, but now I'm thinking it may just be a Christmas present instead.



One of the wonderful (and patient) ladies at Purl helped me decide which yarn to use. I timidly explained that I was on a bit of a budget and she promptly whipped out a calculator, furrowed her brow a moment, then started whizzing around the shop pointing out yarns I could use. I love that!

I ended up using Rowan 4-ply cotton. My grandma likes bright colors, so I pointed to what looked to me like a cheerful salmon kind of color on the top shelf. The sales lady said, "you mean the one third from the left?"
"Umm, no, the one that's 2nd from the right."
"oh, you mean you want the orange?"
"Umm, I guess so."

I got it home and Twin's response was a single "wow" followed a short time after with a "that's bright."

But I will insist on calling it "salmon." And I will insist on thinking it's a good color, and that my grandma will like it. Positive kind of thinking.

I'm using an easy-peasy, no-brainer pattern I got in this crochet kit. Double crochet-chain-double crochet, double crochet-chain-double crochet. I think I can even handle that on my morning subway commute, when I am still half asleep and without the benefit of fully functioning faculties.

OK, onto the third SALMON ball of yarn.

getting nippy, so good thing dolly and this cantaloupe are keeping warm

It's been strangely cool here this week, and though I am sad to say good-bye to summer, it's awfully nice to cozy up under a blanket at night. And fall has its own special magic: back-to-school and crunchy leaves and those first sharp nips in the air. The cool weather has been making me itch to crochet, so I pulled out this half-finished hat that I started sometime in the spring. It's the Snowbunny Hat pattern from Alicia. I ordered a few of her patterns because they are so gosh-durn cute, even though I don't have any little girls to whom I can give this stuff. So a handy cantaloupe is doing the modeling for me. My stuffed snowman also obliged me, though it didn't fit him as well as it did the cantaloupe.

And check out this sweater and hat my Mom knitted for Dolly. She actually took a pattern for an adult-size sweater and altered it down for the doll! I'm quite amazed by this, as I have never knitted anything but a scarf. I'm a bit better with crochet. Mom let me decorate the sweater and Dolly lay in her box for many evenings before I decided to give her the embroidered snowflake.

OK, please excuse me as Agassi is once again battling to stay in the USOpen and it really requires my undivided attention. He's playing that lovely Baghdatis guy who has such a nice face. As Twin says, "what a cute little Cypriote." He is cute, and we like to say "Cypriote."

totally ripped

I've been wanting to crochet with fabric strips for a while and this seemed like a nice easy project to start with. I had a coaster pattern that I was able, with only a little frustrated fiddling, to adapt for the larger gauge of the fabric strips. Ripping the fabric was fun and winding it into a big ball was even funner. I loved the ball of wound fabric. I almost wanted to stop there and just keep making balls because I thought they were so pretty. If not particularly useful.



I almost stopped after making one coaster because my curiosity was satisfied and I have a terrible tendency to want to move on to a new project before I complete the current one. But I persevered and the last three crocheted up very quickly. Now I want to make a matching trivet for the table, maybe alternating the blue check with another color and making it rectangular this time. I also think it would be so cool to make a bath mat with this method. But that would require a serious commitment, so I'll probably hold off for a while.

wimbledon update: I'm standing behind my Baghdatis prediction. Unfortunately I can't make an underdog prediction for the ladies because the four left in the draw are seeds 1, 2, 3, and 4. Why is women's tennis so much more predictable than men's? Makes it a bit less exciting. I'm rooting for Mauresmo, though. She's tough.

to one thing constant never

I'm throwing in the towel. This baby blanket will never be finished. It's just too incredibly slow. The yarn is too light, the pattern is too complicated, the hook is too damn small! I wanted to finish it. On Tuesday I vowed a renewed commitment to it. I crocheted all the way to work (45 min) and all the way back (45 min). I crocheted while watching The Parent Trap for the bazillionth time (1 hr 30 min). And all I had to show for it were three lousy rows. (3 hrs = 3 rows = 3 hours of my life I will never get back)

It's not patience I lack, but focus. There are too many other projects I want to do—so many inspiring things I see out there that I want to try. So I guess it was Shakespeare who said it though the words come to me through the Emma Thompson film adaptation:

One foot on sea,
And one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny nonny!

So I'm letting this project go. At least for now. I thought briefly about making it into a pillow, but I'm not sure you're supposed to give pillows to babies. I can just see myself giving a baby gift which, while looking pretty darn cute, will also asphyxiate the poor child.

Lying in bed last night I imagined a baby quilt. In soft yellows. And I've already ordered this, this, and this pattern from Alicia. And rumor has it Mom has ordered One Skein and Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and she may give them to me if I play my cards right (YAY thanks marmee). And Dolly is still awaiting her wardrobe.

So even if I only start projects and never finish them, at least in the process I am feeling mighty blithe and bonny.

meet lloyd

Last week a friend introduced me to amigurumi—a japanese style of crocheted stuffed animals. You can see incredibly cute ones at Avocadolite and GourmetAmigurumi. Though the ones on those sites are pretty complicated, the basics of the skill didn't seem too intimidating, so I thought I'd give it a try. I found this pattern for a penguin from kreinik which I thought appropriate for my Penguin friends.

Jennie, being a bear of little vision, named him Blobbie the Penguin as I worked to shape his (admittedly somewhat blob-shaped) body. I didn't have any black yarn, so I just used some endy-bits that I had lying around--red and cream. Mom said a red penguin was either a Republican or a Communist, and since he certainly didn't want to be a Republican, he became Blobbie the Commy Penguin.

In the end, I showed up Jennie's skepticism by producing a moderately cute little bird. We realized that penguins that are not black really just look like any other bird. (Little abstractly crocheted ones do, anyway.) And when he was all done and had received his little embroidered face, he whispered to me that his name was Lloyd and that communism was just a phase he went through—he has now wholeheartedly espoused the democratic system as well as the free-market economy, despite being red.

crochet to go

I've been crocheting a lot on the subway recently but have been frustrated because I can't keep all my supplies, yarn, and project organized and tidy while traveling. Also, I am paranoid about getting my work dirty. I have a neurotic sense that the subway is crawling with germs and putrescence. It probably is, but I generally try to maintain blissful ignorance of such things because thinking about them too much will only lead to increasingly irrational neuroses and then I am straight on my way to becoming a crotchety (ha!) old cat lady who can not leave her house. But rational or not, I feel a strong need to protect my work in transit. And, I like to be organized. So I started sewing.

I imagined a roll-up case that would protect the crochet project while organizing supplies. It ended up looking a little like a mini diaper changer. But in really cute prints. There were a few moments in the creative process when I was pretty sure the increasing complexity of all the pockets, pouches, and doodads that I wanted to add was outstripping my meager sewing skills. Jennie helped me with the planning and I did the sewing myself, only having to rip out a couple seams along the way.

I'm happy with the way it finally turned out. I'll be testing it on the subway tomorrow and I'm sure I'll come up with ways to improve it over time. I'm considering it a prototype. Mom, if I make you one, will you help me troubleshoot the design?