Will you look what’s in the hotel room closet?

I think the Universe wants me to iron the lime green polo’s facings.

I’m not at home. I’m in Raleigh. Michael is attending an event called the “Ruby Hoedown” (Ruby is his programming language of choice)*. This is good news for you, Dear Reader: I took pictures of the Dish Rag Tag Team Prizes before I left, remembered to bring the camera (AND the camera cable) and as travel knitting I have brought the unfinished green polo and CounterPain squares. Avoiding both these projects has provided me with suitable motivation for a blog post that has been too long in coming.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in addition to Dish Rag Tag Glory, The members of the First Dish Rag Tag Team to complete the race will receive:

A dye-your-own sock yarn kit!

Each kit will contain a skein of Knitpicks’ Bare Superwash Merino (the tweedy kind that will look great dyed a solid color), a packet of Cushing Acid Dye in one of a rainbow of colors, a disposable dust mask and a pair of disposable gloves. Not a sock knitter? The Superwash Merino is also great for shawls, book marks, coffee cup cozies, doll blankets…

Second Place Dish Rag Tag Team Members will receive:

A set of hand-painted Peace Fleece knitting needles!

The ends are hand painted wood with pretty flower designs in a variety of colors, the needle part is also wood that has been sanded smooth and pointy (all the pieces come from different places but since I am here** and the needles are at home I can’t tell you where those places might be).

Third Place Dish Rag Tag Team Members will receive:

A beautiful, hand-made row-counter!

I love these! They are ingeniously designed with 10 beads that slide neatly up and down the loopy bits to keep count of how many rows you have completed. The beads all look like candy (every marker is different). They were made by Joanne who has a knitting shop of her very own – every girl’s dream! She helped me make these great prizes possible – so everyone should run over and thank her for her kindness (and sign up for the Continental Knitting workshop if you are in the area).

There are also a number of Individual Merit Awards that can be earned by any Team member regardless of Team Performance. Unfortunately, I left my list of prizes at home (remembering to bring the camera cable seriously taxed my resources) but the categories are as follows:

• Fastest Turn-Around – This will be based on the Dish Rag Tag Application’s Tag Logs, which is why entering the actual date of mailing is so important.
• Most Complex Tag Dish Rag – This will be awarded to the Dish Rag Tag Participant who completes the most complicated dishrag pattern as part of the race. To enter, email me a picture of your finished Tag Dish Rag and the details of the pattern you used. If it’s too late for a picture – just let me know and I can contact the recipient of your dishrag for photographic evidence.
• Best/Most Interesting Dish Rag Knitting in Public Picture – Anyone may enter to win this Merit Award. Simply email a picture of yourself knitting a dishrag in an unusual or exciting Public Area. The Ivey Household (including Great Gran) will select 5 finalists. The 5 finalists will appear in a blog entry and be voted on by the Knitting Public At Large.
• I know that there is at least one more – but I can’t for the life of me think of what it might be. You’ll have to wait until I get home and look at my list.

The Race seems to be going just swimmingly (five Tags have been started today)! It is so exciting to watch the boxes show up on various blogs around the country*** and to watch the status bars get longer with each tag!

*He claimed that the last Ruby event was no fun without me. He also claimed that it would take us nine hours to get up here. While the first claim may have been the truth, the second was a Big Fat Lie.
**I love the hotel! There is a tiny kitchen with a refrigerator that makes ICE! I also suspect that there is yarn in the vicinity.
***Usually after the box has already left – it’s all about Speed, baybee.

I warned him a couple weeks ago about Dish Rag Tag.

The race has officially begun! And so has this afternoon’s thunderstorm, so that’s all you get today – I am going to read a nice non-conductive book.

My Apologies

This post is going to be pretty boring for those of you who are not involved in Dish Rag Tag and is Required Reading for those of you who are! I will have to show you the prizes later, our Daily Thunderstorm is here and that makes for poor picture taking

Care and Feeding of Dish Rag Tag Boxes

The boxes need to last throughout the whole race! It is important to treat them with respect. In particular: Do not tear the tape off! This will tear the box, rendering it sad and crushable. Please take the time (I know the walk from the mail box is a long way but patience is a virtue) to cut the tape with a sharp implement and open the box along its seams. If you feel like the box needs reinforcement after a rough leg of the race, add another layer of packing tape. If the top of the box is looking ratty, turn the box over, reversing the top and bottom.

How To Tag A Team Member

Let’s imagine that you just received your team’s box in the mail.

The first thing you will do is log in to the Dish Rag Tag application. The home screen will say “You’ve been tagged by so-and-so!” and give you an opportunity to report when you received the box. You should select the day (day before yesterday, yesterday, today) that the box arrived and click the button that says “I have the box!” to accept the tag.

Please note: As soon as you have been tagged by a team mate, the “You’ve been tagged” message will show up on your Home screen. Don’t say that you have the box until you really do! You can navigate away from that screen to use the rest of the site normally, just click “HOME” in the navigation bar at the top to return.

When you are ready to mail the box to the next person, log in and you will notice that the home page has changed. There is now a link that says, “Tag a Team Member.” When you click it, you will be taken to a list of untagged team members, just select who you want to tag, and click the name. You will see a link that says: “Print Mailing Label.” When you click it, a mailing label complete with your return address information will appear! Print it, trim it, attach it to the box and off to the post office you go! When a team runs out of untagged team members, I will show up on the list so that the box can return to me.

Please note: You can only tag ONE person from your team so BE CAREFUL in your selection. Your team mates may have developed a strategy for the order in which the boxes should be mailed. Keep up with your team in the forums so that you don’t accidentally mail it to someone who is out of town!

On your next log in, you will have an opportunity to select the day you actually mailed the box and enter the tracking number if you have one.

You do not have to memorize all of this! In your Team Box, there will be a card that tells you “What To Do Next” with step-by-step instructions!

When in doubt: CLICK HOME in the navigation bar.

Tracking

There are also widgets for tracking team status that you can put on your blogs! The code for each team’s status bar is on the team page (just cut and paste to add it to your blog) and if you want to go all out and track all 23 teams, the uber tracker is located in the “widgets” section of the Dish Rag Tag application.

Cheating

I trust that no one will cheat. I trust you to make your dishrags to the specified 9″(ish) regulation size. I trust that you will make the person you are tagging a USABLE dish rag with a decent stitch count. If anyone makes a 9″ dish rag on US 13 needles so that it is unusable as a dish rag, you will be Disqualified (and by extension, your team will no longer qualify for the top three prizes although Individual Merit Awards may still be won). I trust that you will not start work on your dish rag until you receive the box and that you will use the cotton in the box to make it. I trust that if your team has received specific mailing instructions from me (for instance, the box may not be mailed to someone in the same state), that you will abide by those rules. Your team is depending on your honesty to achieve the coveted Dish Rag Tag Glory.

In the event of a tie (two boxes arrive in my mailbox on the same day), the one that went into the mailbox first (or the one that the mail carrier hands to me first) will be the winner.

The waiting is nearly over! The race begins tomorrow!

The Dish Rag Queen is, of course, Theresa! She has an astonishing 36 hand made dish cloths in her kitchen. Evidence of 32 of them can be found here. Goodies will be on the way from Darlene directly!

I have finally collected all of my mail from last week. Thanks to a package from Abigail, I am ready to pack up the Dish Rag Tag boxes! Can you believe the start date is almost here? Team Captains, count yourself lucky if you receive one of these marvelous creations!

Beautiful stitching and the garter grafting is undetectable!

Abigail, I will never be able to thank you enough for all of this (and for the sock patterns and dish rag to keep for my very own and all the other goodies – as if a stack of dish rags wasn’t more than enough). She’s actually in the middle of a big move right now, but her internet capabilities should return shortly!

The first installment of the RubySapphire Sock Club also arrived! I couldn’t be more thrilled with the pattern, sheepy notepad, delicious yarn (self-striping) and matching stitch markers. The yarn is their Treadsoft Sock Yarn which is 100% Merino and has a look and feel similar to Supersock – it’s very soft to the touch and probably a dream to work with.

I am really looking forward to the next installment!

I also received the yarn for the second of the two patterns I am working on for the upcoming months. It is a delicious blend of greens with a touch of yellow that makes me think of Christmas trees.

Mamie seems to like it.

But, they don’t need that pattern for a few more months. I am going to take a tiny break from sock knitting. Just a tiny one.

UP NEXT
Dish Rag Tag prizes and the answer to the question that has been on everyone’s mind: “How am I supposed to get the address of the person I am tagging next?”

We’re home again! The million hours back was just as tough as the million hours up but I didn’t work on a sock this time. I was just Too Tired.

I need to check my notes (And the rest of my email, comments and blog feeds. I haven’t turned on the computer since my last post – it was a completely insane week. I didn’t even have time to go to the Artisan’s Bazaar to buy yarn from Bethany!), but I will announce the Dish Rag Queen later today and show you all the goodies that came in the mail while we were gone! Including the new Harry Potter. Which I’ve finished.