The Official Pattern of Dish Rag Tag: the Sequel is complete. When I was searching (read: wracking my brain) for the inspiration for this pattern, I asked myself: What do I like in a dish cloth?

Seed Stitch!

So that’s what you get. To make the Official Dish Rag, you need to be able to cast on, bind off, knit, purl and read a pattern. Two stitch markers are helpful, but not required if you have a lot of confidence. The gauge is roughly 4 stitches to an inch in seed stitch (I used US6 needles) – the finished dish cloth should be between 8 and 9 inches square.

When the race is over, I’ll put the pattern on my patterns page.

The teams are assigned! Log in to see who you’ll be teamed up with in the quest for Dish Rag Tag Glory.

All of our team captains are new this year (I thought it would be fun to give lots of people Leadership Opportunities)! You team’s captain moderates the forum and will also finalize Mailing Strategy for your team, so be sure to let her know if you’ll be out of town at any point during the race.

What are you waiting for? Go see who your teammates are!

**If you don’t have an email from me in your inbox, please check your spam folder and (if it’s not in there) log in and check your email address for accuracy!**

I’m assigning teams. This is what it looks like:

You’d think I’d have a different plan this year.

I took that about 45 minutes ago. There are three times as many strips of paper on the table and four more sheets of participants to cut up! I should have teams assigned by this evening.

If no one turns on the ceiling fan.

UPDATE: Michael just got home and is writing a script to assign teams. I wish I had known he could do that before I cut up all that paper.

Dish Rag Tag Sign-Ups are officially closed!

We have 289 participants. Which makes 24 teams of twelve and one alternate (the last person signed up – I’ll email you in a bit to let you know who you are). Perfection.

I gotta start making teams! I still gotta figure out that pattern!

PS Divvs is working again. I am down to a 67. Boo.

Dish Rag Tag: the Sequel sign-ups are officially closed at 289! Follow Yarn Miracle to stay current on Tag related events including next year’s race.

Dish Rag Tag = 285 with less than an hour to go. I think 15 knitters maybe too much to ask for, so I am hoping for three more to make 24 teams of 12! Are there three more Competitive Knitters out there?

Oh, and Divvs was experiencing “scaling issues” yesterday. That’s what testing is for right? The my little Divvs Rating Contest is open until Sunday around midnight. It should be working again now (should be – I don’t know for sure) if the folks who gave it a shot yesterday would check and folks who have stubbled across this entry today want to give it a try!

UPDATED: There is a big red notice that says they are still having problems. Since the whole thing is about connections, it’s having a little trouble dealing with the hoards of friends that some users have. It’s good to know that not everyone is as anti-social as I am! Don’t give up!

Dish Rag Tag: the Sequel sign-ups are officially closed at 289! Follow Yarn Miracle to stay current on Tag related events including next year’s race.
Dish Rag Tag sign-ups are now at 266! Will there be 34 more people before noon tomorrow? Stay tuned to Yarn Miracle to find out!

In the meantime:

Michael and Don are ready to alpha launch their latest endeavor. You’ll like this. It’s all about connectedness. Who you know, who you follow, who knows you. They need some test users to sign up and get their Divvs Rating. It’s free, painless, and oddly fun.

Here’s the text from the front page of Divvs:

Our primary service is the Divvs Rating. We analyze your connections to other people across all the social networks you share with us, do some Complicated Math, and come up with a simple number that represents how connected you are.

It’s perfect for Craigslist or web forums where you want to keep your personal details private, but want to prove you’re a real person, with real friends. You can share your rating anywhere you can add a link to an image, and you do it without disclosing anything personal.

Think credit score, but social not monetary. Sign up for fun and to help test the system.

**Just for fun (I just thought of this and DRT has made me a little contest happy), comment on this post with your rating before midnight (central) Sunday August 10, and I will throw you in the pot to win some sort of knitty goodness. This is an anywhere in the world contest by the way! There is also a skein or two of Socks That Rock to the knitter who manages to knock the top rated user out of his slot.**

Right now I have a 74 out of 100.

This might not be a 74 anymore due to Wild Fluctuation (see below).

Not bad, but if you all sign up, it would get better! Once you’ve finished that process, and have become obsessed with your rating, run over to the support site and give a thumbs up to adding ravelry! If there was a Plurk user out there that wanted that network involved – open a support ticket*.

Just so you know, since this is the “alpha launch” the ratings will Fluctuate Wildly as more people sign up. Feel free to obsess as much as I have and check your Divvs Rating many many many times a day.

*How cool is Get Satisfaction? I love that you can say how requests and answers make you feel with smilies!
P.S. It’s my Blogaversary! Thank you to Beth for reminding me.

Dish Rag Tag: the Sequel sign-ups are officially closed at 289. Follow Yarn Miracle to stay current on Tag related events including next year’s race.

Dish Rag Tag Sign-Ups are at 221! I should probably get to work on the Official Dish Rag Pattern.