Tracking the Right Side

FO: Three Cloths

2008-04-12T13:35:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite things to knit is a dishcloth. I love the feel of cotton, I love how quickly you can finish them, and I love that they give me a chance to try out new techniques before committing to a larger project. It's never that depressing to frog a dishcloth.

I also think they're incredibly useful on several levels. Obviously, it's great to have hand-knitted, environmentally friendly washcloths for dishes. Secondly, they feel great on your skin. And thirdly, they make great, great presents.

I make a lot of dishcloths. In fact, the picture below consists of number 5, 6, and 7 since I've started knitting. All three of these are going to homes besides my own (though you can't know where any of them are going yet). In fact, I've only ever kept one dishcloth, and that was the one that took me the least amount of time to knit!

One of these days I'm going to get around to making myself some more of these. Because I really do love them.

On a side note--I took my market bag down to the farmer's market today. It's such a gorgeous day out (thank goodness that all the storming happened overnight!) and the walk was beautiful. I love living up north because of spring, which is my favorite season. But the bag worked out wonderfully! I put homemade sourdough bread and spiced tomato jam in it (my lunch right now, actually) and carried it home. It was so nice to be able to support local food and not use any plastic bags at the same time. I really love the bag.

FO: Market Bag

2008-04-11T08:27:00.004-04:00

A couple days ago I finished my market bag. Right now it looks like rain Saturday, which is a shame, since I was really looking forward to taking it down to the farmer's market.

I ended up having to buy a second ball of yarn for this, even though I shortened it. Which is fine, because now I've had an excuse to make another dishcloth, and even enough yarn left to make ANOTHER one. I love knitting dishcloths.

The point of this started out being: I like the market bag. I like that it's smaller than the pattern calls for because it's soooo stretchy. I love this Rose color, even though I'm not normally a "pink person." I'm looking forward to making this pattern again so that I have a set to take grocery shopping.

The first picture here is the one that's slightly more accurate in color.

Market Bag and Subway Stitches

2008-04-07T14:27:00.002-04:00

Since spring is close (oh so close!) I've been very excited about making a market bag. One of my favorite things about living in Brooklyn is how many farmers markets there are, and how easy they are to get to. One of the hardest parts of the winter is not being able to get nice, fresh fruit and vegetables. So with the return of farmers markets, and my personal goal of trying to be ecologically friendly, market bags seem like the way to go.

I went through a bunch of patterns before settling on this one, that can be found at Plymouth Yarn. I like it because the bottom is so sturdy, and it didn't drive me nuts by asking me to do crazy things like joining 3 stitches on each DPN and then knitting them in a (k, yo) pattern for the first row. Which I tried over and over before giving up.

But I really do like the way this is coming out! The pattern is easy to memorize, and I've had a lot of fun KIPing this. My friend Kate and I have taken to knitting in a cafe every Friday together, and this is a great project for knitting on the subway.

I have about three inches to go before doing the band and the handles.

I'm really excited to finish it!

I ordered the last of the things to send to my swap partner for the tea swap today. I'm so excited for everything to get here so that I can put the box together and send it out. This has turned into so much fun.

Introduction

2008-04-07T14:25:00.000-04:00

I figure that I've been knitting long enough now (about 7-8 months) that I should move my craft posts from my personal journal to an official one. So here we go!