My dad died today.

I was knitting gloves for him, because my mom said his hands were cold.  I had them finished but for weaving in the ends, and I was all set to have him try them on and do the finishing while we visited him today.

Nothing went as planned.

Weekly (whatever) Dishcloth

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I am still managing to output some washcloths.  "Weekly" may be a gross misnomer at this point, but they are still trickling in.  It's just that I'm very slow to do things like weaving in ends, taking pictures, blogging . . .


Week 24
Square Check by Marjorie Dussaud
Peaches & Creme, Hippi

This was what I'm beginning to think of as a very typical Marjorie Dussaud dishcloth - disproportionate garter stitch edging around a needlessly complicated stitch pattern.  They're nice enough, but the repeats are often too large; I hate having to keep referring to the pattern to find my place.  A chart would be incredibly helpful.  I left off one repeat because I got bored of it, and 3x3 seemed like a nice route to go.  I made several mistakes while I was at it.

Week 25
Pinwheel Dishcloth by Allison Griffith
Sugar'n Cream, Red, Hot Green; Peaches & Creme, Ecru, Bright Blue, Bright Pink

This dishcloth was a lot of fun to knit, I loved the swinging rhythm of the short-rows and the resulting drape of the garter stitch.  I hated weaving in the ends.  So many ends.  I'd like to try this one again in a variegated yarn to see the effect (with fewer ends).

Week 26
Angkor Wat by Allyson Dykhuizen
Knit Picks Cotlin, Canary, Surf

This is a typical Allyson Dykhuizen dishcloth pattern; dk weight yarn, applied-icord edging, difficult-to-pronounce name derived from architecture that has nothing to do with the stitch pattern but leads to interesting Wikipedia searches.  I ditched the icord edging after several aborted attempts and went with a (poorly executed) single crochet border instead.  It was so much faster, if not quite as pretty.  I think the icord would have worked better if I had slipped the edge stitches to make them easier to pick up, though it's the first time I've ever seen directions for an icord edge that first required you to pick up stitches all the way around the border instead of picking them up as you go.  The end result is on the small side; I'm thinking it's going to be a baby washcloth instead of a dishcloth after all.

Not enough time in the day

Drive-by Yarn Along post . . .

Good news: finally got around to starting the Star-Crossed Slouchy Hat that I have been desiring to make for ages. (Yarn is Knit Picks Chroma Worsted, Hollyhock)

Bad news: Can't get dpns big enough to get proper gauge.

Good news: I can do math, cast on more stitches, go on my merry way.

Bad news: Didn't figure this all out until well into the hat, had to frog and start over.

Bad news: Stepped on reading kindle, totaled it.

Good news: Kindle Fire working again!

Bad news: Carrying tablet kindle around at work much more nerve-wracking than carrying the reading Kindle, as the former seems more likely to be stolen than the clunky old one.

Good news: Reading "Villette" by Charlotte Bronte

Bad news: Bit dry so far.

Good news: It's Charlotte Bronte, I have no doubt of things getting interesting.

Good news: Took a picture of knitting!

Bad news: Terrible picture.