A Workhorse Washcloth

It was near midnight, the house was dark and muggy, and I was zoning out watching YouTube videos.  I tried knitting on an acrylic afghan block, but in the high humidity it felt like my fingers had a light coating of pancake syrup.  I needed something mindless, something breathable.  There was some dishcloth cotton yarn and straight needles at hand, so I picked them up with a notion of knitting a basic corner-to-corner Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth.  Somehow I cast on 46 stitches instead of 4.  It was late, and sometimes when you get going with a long-tail cast on you just forget yourself and keep cranking out loops until something draws your attention back to your hands, like remembering what it was you were trying to make.  I thought about it for a minute, then dropped a stitch back off for a more easily divisible 45 stitches and took off with a vague shape of pattern in mind.

This is as simple as it gets.  Knit a few stitches, purl a few stitches, lather, rinse, repeat, stop when it's big enough (or in my case, when your remnant of a skein runs out).

Yarn: Lily Sugar'n Cream, yellow, 54 yds
Needles: US 9
Gauge: 4.5 sts/in

CO 45 sts

Row 1: (K5, P5) 4x, K5
Row 2: (P5, K5) 4x, P5
Repeat these two rows once.  This creates the first row of blocks.  The next rows will reverse the directions, to alternate the purl and knit blocks from the first row.

Row 5: (P5, K5) 4x, P5
Row 6: (K5, P5) 4x, K5
Repeat once.

Start again from the beginning, and repeat this sequence of 8 rows 5 times or until washcloth reaches desired size.  BO all stitches and weave in ends.

Weekly Dishcloth, loosely defined

I know I've been afk for a good several weeks; I developed a thrush infection that has made nursing a nightmare, and when the thing you're doing every two or three hours around the clock is excruciatingly painful, it kind of takes over your life.  I seem to have it mostly licked now, though, so I'm getting back to some kind of normal.

I counted, and I'm actually on schedule dishcloth-wise, thanks to the extras that I made for swaps and holidays and whatnot, despite my month-long hiatus.  I'm hoping to crank out a couple more this week ('cause I'm nothing if not full of delusions of productivity).

Week 18-21 (Knit Picks Week 19)

Fishbones, by Marjorie Dussaud
Lily Sugar'n Cream, Daisy Ombre

I love this happy yellow and white colorway.  The dishcloth pattern is easy to memorize and mindless without being too boring.  It made for great knitting in the car.  I don't know how practical the floats will be with use and washing, but I'll let you know.

Week 22

Gingham Dishcloth
Peaches & Creme, Forest Green, Rosemary, Ecru

More tapestry crochet, oy vey, the single crochet . . . I do like how the gingham is translated.  I fell in love with gingham in my tweens, because instead of the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, my idols were Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables.  I lived a sheltered life, what can I say?