Tag Archives: my patterns

V is for Victory!

I’ve got the Official Pattern of Dish Rag Tag V worked out.

looks great in a variegated

Round, uncomplicated, great for scrubbing.

When I started working on this thing, it was no fun. No fun at all. Repetitions took too long, I had to spend all this time counting and it was just all around boring boring boring without a complicated lace stitch. Even without the lacy stuff, a 23-row pattern repeat with short rows is just too intimidating for a newer knitter. I was getting ready to abandon the round thing altogether when I had a Design Epiphany.

If you haven’t had a Design Epiphany, they are kind of neat. All of a sudden you say, “Oh!” and you’ve solved your problem.

After the Epiphany I felt much better about round. There isn’t even any counting if you use a stitch marker. You can put the whole thing down at the end of a row, walk away and when you get back you can tell where you left off! If you’ve never used short rows, this will be an excellent place to start.

I’ve written up the pattern so Mom and Great Gran can give it a test run. I’ll have to let you know if I enjoy it as much after the fifth or sixth starter cloth. Even if it doesn’t hold up to multi-cloth binge knitting, Dish Rag Taggers only have to knit it once!

Full Up

Just as a personal aside:

I might have too much on my plate.

Do you think Dish Rag Taggers would freak out over a ’round’ Official Dish Rag? With short rows maybe? Yeah, you’re probably right. Last year’s cloth doesn’t have a lot of hearts on Ravelry but it gets downloaded a minimum of once a day. I’m not sure I can beat that. I’m not sure I should try. But dish rags are on my mind.

I’ll announce dates this week.

Roger Again

I held your hand

“I hold him by his paw.”

Me: No stuffed friends in the bathroom.
Ellie: Him not stuffed! Him Real!
Me (stalling for time to counter that): Already? What made Roger Real?
Ellie: You did. Every bit.

Roger got to sit on the shelf while Ellie had her shower.

The Cat is just about ready for the test knitters. But are the test knitters ready for the Cat?

Roger

I finished the cat. His name is Roger.

mwah

Ellie was thrilled. And possessive.

Here’s the best picture I managed of him alone.

by himself

Because of this kind of thing.

grab!

And this.

dance Roger!

It’s naptime, so I am about to go borrow him for some ‘studio’ work. It’s risky, but I don’t know what else to do. Ellie says we can give pictures together another try this afternoon. She says she will hold him by one paw so that everyone can see what he looks like.

I think I’ve got my cat pattern test knitters already (rabbit pattern surplus), but if not, you’ll be the first to know.

The Cuteness! It Burns!

Life is too short not to give into temptation.

meyowzers

It seems that I have raised my child to believe the same thing.

She used to want a grey kitty. Now she wants this one and she says he doesn’t need a body or arms and legs. He is perfect just the way he is thank you. They watched Shaun the Sheep together. It wasn’t at all weird.

I love this yarn.

I’m lying. It was totally weird that Ellie watched TV with a disembodied (pre-embodied?) cat head. But the heart wants what it wants.

Need v. Want

I’m working on the Rabbit and Mystery Patterns. And a couple little things for my sadly neglected toy shop.

But what I WANT to be doing working on the Cat. Because, seriously, this is some of the nicest yarn I have ever touched.

ORANGE

So very soft.

SpinSpanSpun, spun and dyed it just for me. Luscious.

One other thing I’ve been thinking about lately. Dish Rag Tag. The response to my little survey was Enthusiastic, but not Overwhelming. So I think we’ll have a race with 10 teams of 10 (100 total knitters).

To those of you who have never heard of Dish Rag Tag: Welcome new readers! For the past four years I have run a dish cloth knitting relay race with the help of Priority Mail to pass the baton (box) from knitter to knitter across the United States! You can catch up the rules in this post from last year’s race.

I should start working on the Official Pattern of Dish Rag Tag.

But what I WANT to be doing is working on the Cat.