Created By Artsygal

I've had a couple of people ask me what stitch pattern I used in the center of my washcloth as well as how many stitches I cast on to get that ubercool plaidy effect. Sounds like a request for a pattern to me! So here goes!

Supplies:
1 oz Peaches & Cream worsted weight cotton in Gumdrop
US Size 8 (5 mm needles)

Cast on 30 stitches loosely.

Bottom border
Row 1: Slip 1, *K1, P1, repeat from * to end
Row 2: Slip 1, *P1, K1, repeat from * to end
Row 3: Same as row 1

Center panel
Row 1: Slip 1, K1, P1, *K2, P2, repeat from * till 3 stitches remain, K1, P1, K1
Row 2: Slip 1, *P1, K1, repeat from * to end
Repeat these 2 rows till washcloth is just a tiny bit shorter than your desired size.

Top border
Knit rows 2 and 3 as you did in the bottom border.
Cast off loosely and weave in ends (or heck, let them hang loose, it's just a washcloth!)

My washcloth was approximately 8 inches square. I haven't test knit it in different sizes yet, but it looks like every extra 4 stitches will give you an additional inch in width.

I've been on a granola kick recently..

Who needs store bought when they turn out this good home made? Dark chocolate, raspberry maple granola bars are mighty tasty I tell you! And probably much healthier than the store bought ones.

I didn't follow a recipe for these.. but started with toasting some instant oats and wheatgerm in a large skillet then mixed in about twice as much rice krispies, half a cup of dried raspberries, and half a lindt 85% dark chocolate bar that I chopped up. Meanwhile in a saucepan I melted some butter, added in brown sugar and honey and heated it up until it was nice and liquidy Add in some maple flavoring (I was actually reaching for the vanilla and grabbed the wrong thing.. but it worked out well!) and then pour it over the oats/rice krispies mixture. Mix everything together well, and spread it all into a wax paper lined pan. Spread it out, and let it cool down and set before cutting it into bars. Store between layers of waxed paper in an airtight container. Though I don't think they'll need to be stored for too long!

I'll be making these again I'm sure - and next time actually measure how much of each ingredient I used!

There was a time when I thought all those people who knit socks with teeny tiny needles were just plain insane. And the people who knit laceweight yarns? Why they ought to be locked up in padded rooms! So lets review my current WIPs and recent FOs

Mermaid Jacket - 3mm needles
Pomatomus socks 2.75mm needles
Stripy Socks - 2.25mm needles
Swallowtail Shawl - 3.5mm needles

Are we sensing a trend here yet? I'm still plugging along on my Mermaid Jacket.. it's pretty much doubled in size since I posted a photo. But I needed some of that instant gratification stuff stat!

Half a ball of Peaches & Cream Cotton in Gum Drop knit up into a washcloth. I didn't follow a pattern here*, just cast on a whole bunch of stitches and made it up as I went along. I must have done something right though - look at the lovely pooling I got! This was a breeze to make and took hardly any time! This may have been my first washcloth I ever knit, but it won't be my last I'm sure!

EDIT: There is now a pattern. Knit up your very own instant gratification washcloth!

Can I just say I'm incredibly jealous of everyone who's at Rhinebeck this weekend? I fully intended to go this year - until this whole moving to California thing happened. It's a bit of a hike to go to Rhinebeck from this end of the country.

But look at this!

BigEvilGrape took a skein of my yarn with her to knit from and took a pic of it at the Ravelry meetup for me! How so very awesome!

I'm being watched. I sat down this evening to knit and heard a mew.

Precious is perched on the top of her scratching post that is besides my chair, intently watching my needles move. I swear, one of these days she's going to jump and land on my lap. I pet her and get back to knitting when another face pops up - this time in front of my chair.

This is Flash. She likes to come up to me and mew repeatedly till I stop whatever I'm doing to reach down and pet her. Of course, then she flops over on the ground JUST out of my reach continuing to mew at me till I get up to pet her. And once I start petting her, what does she do? She attempts to take a chunk out of my fingers. Crazy cat.

Good thing they're both cute.

Oh.. and there's new yarn in the shop!

Yeah.. it's been one of THOSE sort of days. I looked away from the skeiner for just a moment and this is what happened. This being the third reskeining tangle of the day, I'm calling it quits for now. Fortunately I'm pretty much done. Here's just a few of the ones where I didn't mess up.

I've been working on my Mermaid jacket for several days now. I've even ripped out 2 inches of it and started over. That may not sound like much - but keep in mind, 2 inches is 25 rows - at 181 stitches each! Why the ripping out? I found some modifications on Ravelry that would let me eliminate some seaming and make the finishing process a bit smoother. And goodness knows I can use all the help I can get in that department!

I was worried at first that I would get bored with this project.. nothing but garter for the entire thing! I'll go stark raving mad! Turns out that's hardly the case. There's just enough going on at the ends of the rows for me to need to pay attention, while I can zone out a little and knit on autopilot in the middle of each row for a couple of minutes. And every 35 or so rows something interesting comes along like a gusset made up of short rows. I've done 2 of those gussets now and have just cast off from the shoulder to do the armscye shaping.

I love how the stripes pop against each other. This pattern really is ingenious.

Just a quickie as I'm supposed to still be skeining. While I've been watching the skeiner go round and round, I've been mentally going through my fiber stash trying to decide what to spin next. And I remembered this.

I have 4 batts of this.. an amazingly soft angora/wool/silk/alpaca blend I picked up at MDS&W this year. It was destined from the very start to become a 2 ply laceweight. The question is.. how do I take best advantage of the lovely colours within it? You all know me - I'll go to great lengths for the perfect results. And batts that beautiful need to be given the proper attention. My problem is I just can't decide how to approach it! So all you spinners out there reading this - how would YOU spin those batts?

He left me 2 boxes by the front door today. Look what was inside.

15 kilos (or 33 lbs) of my 3 ply merino base yarn. For those of you doing the math, that's 150 skeins worth. Of course, before I can start to dye it, I need to skein it up.

Wheeeee.. round and round it goes! This is what I have fill up.

As you can see, I'm not leaving this room for quite a while! If you haven't heard from me by Sunday, send help (and chocolate!)

Oh.. and stop by SonnyandShear.com if you get a chance. I shipped them a box of yarn recently and it just went online!

This past friday I headed up towards the bay area with a plan. Bright and early on Saturday myself and 3 other knitters got in a car and drove to Santa Rosa where we stood in line in the rain for a little while.

Then we were herded inside where we continued to wait.

While I waited I chatted with blogless Laura who was knitting with the most amazing yarn. When I asked which yarn, she told me it was handspun! Take a look at this sock!

After about a couple of hours total of waiting, the guest of honor finally made an appearance. Who could possibly be so interesting that about 150 or so knitters were willing to wait so patiently for?

The Yarn Harlot of course! I believe that Santa Rosa was the first stop for her latest book tour promoting her collection of essays. She was her usual entertaining, insightful self.

Afterwards, we stood around in line for another hour or so waiting to get our books signed. Everyone got a chance to show off their knits, chat for a moment and take pictures.

Don't you love that tshirt? I aspire to be worthy of one someday! I'm wearing my swallowtail, knit out of some handspun I bought at MDS&W in 2007. Back in May when I went to a talk by the Harlot in Philadelphia (boy does that seem like a lifetime ago!) I wore my Shetland Tea Shawl and she asked me if I'd knit it out of handspun. I hadn't, but it got me wondering why I never use my handspun laceweight. So I pulled out a skein of my spindle spun yarn and cast on for Swallowtail. Saturday was the first time since I finished it that it was cool enough to wear wool, so it seemed appropriate to launch it that day!

Overall a wonderful knitty filled day. Other than the Harlot's talk though, I think one of the best parts of the day was the confused look on the muggles faces as they watched masses of people line up outside the bookstore, knitting away and refusing to budge even when it started raining. We got asked a few times what we were waiting for and got met with some very confused stares when we told them it was for a knitting event.

I've been teasing all of you for a while now with pictures of kinky yarn, and partially knit socks in stripey gradient colours. It's time for the reveal!

Some time ago I posted this image on ravelry in the Artsy Addicts group.

Here's how that little toe turned out!

Nothing too fancy - just a basic toe up sock, knit till I ran out of yarn - quite literally.

From top left, going clockwise -

• How much yarn I had left when I finished these socks. I couldn't have knit a single round more on them!
• Pretty toes - knit using Judy's magic cast on. I love the way these look!
• Calf shaping. Notice how the left and right aren't quite symmetrical? The right side is actually the front of the leg, while the left side is the back. These socks fit like a second skin. I don't know about you, but the front and back of my shapely calves aren't identical, so I don't think that the shaping on them should be either. I'll write an explanation of how I shaped these if anyone is interested.
• Short row heels - I finally figured out how to turn a heel with no holes! I've tried every tutorial I can find, and this heel is a hybridrization of several of them. I won't knit a short row heel any other way now!

Over all, I'm quite happy with these socks. I dyed the yarn up for myself on a whim while I was testing out a new base, and when I posted pictures of them on Ravelry the response was an overwhelming 'Where can I get this yarn NOW!?' Good news - you can now get it in my shop! There aren't many though... I'll be doing just a few skeins of this yarn once in a while, so get yours before they're gone!

Also in the shop today is some new roving. It's been a long time since I dyed any roving and I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it! These are all kettle dyed and the colours go all over the place. It's hard to resist the urge to keep them all for myself!

Yeah.. not fun. Luckily I'm not so blind without them that I can't function without them, though watching TV from across the room gets a bit annoying when I can't always figure out what exactly I'm looking at. And I do have a pair of prescription sunglasses that I've been wearing all the time instead.

So Monday, I took the bus into Visalia (about 30 miles away and the closest decent size town. Why yes, I do live out in the boonies now!) for my first eye exam in years and years. The good news is that my eyesight hasn't changed in about 7 years now. I picked out a new pair of glasses and went for something completly different than what I used to wear. I'm still not sure I love them.. what do you think?

I pick them up on Friday on my way up to the bay area for the weekend. The Yarn Harlot is putting in an appearance there, and I'll be heading there with some local knitters. Should be fun.

Once the glasses were dealt with, I decided to check out the LYS in the area. The last time I was in Visalia a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday and they were closed. An once again this time, they were closed. Next time I'll call first!

On my way back, while waiting for a bus and knitting away, I happened to look up and saw the strangest sign I've ever seen.

Uh.. WTF?! I've never driven a car that gave me my speed down to a fraction of a mile. Have you?