Back to Dishcloths for Now

I gave away some of my dishcloths at the family reunion. One of my favorites, was the sailboat. So, of course, I had to make another one for myself! The sailboat is from a book called Baby Washcloths to Knit by Melissa BerglandBurnham.  I found another book on dishcloths on Annie's Attic, which I bought and then downloaded. It's called More Than a Dozen Dishcloths by Lisa Carnahan.

I know you can download LOTS of dishcloths on Knittingpatterncentral.com  and I have, I guess the colorful pictures of Lisa's dishcloths captured my eye more at the moment! It's like walking into a nice local yarn store and seeing all the wonderful skeins of beautiful hand dyed yarns and wanting to buy some of those as opposed to Red Heart yarn at the local Walmart!

No big projects at the moment..I knitted so much my left hand and wrist started bothering me so I backed off a bit. I'm a "thrower" and I know those knitting movements can be hard on your wrists and fingers....also used the steel needles for the dishcloths and that pressure against the wrists is not good. I may take a look at learning how to do Continental knitting, it's supposed to be less stressful on the hands.....got lots of stuff in the motorhome I COULD do...a small punch needle sheep pattern that is designed to be a hot pad or possibly a chair stool pad, some cross stitch ornaments I started last year when we first went out on the road, and some other things.....the heat (in the nineties this week in Washington state on the eastern side)  is just bogging me down and I don't feel much like doing anything! My fingers are a little swollen, so the heat is affecting me that way, too....Guess I'm getting a little lazy in these hot temperatures!

My brother's wedding is this coming Saturday...I am looking forward to taking lots of wedding photos with our new Nikon 3100 SLR camera. I need to practice beforehand so that's something I can do this week...work on the settings and take different types of shots....that's the ticket!  Until next week then......

A Busy Week

It's been a hectic last five days with the family reunion going on in Sedona, AZ...I finished the knit doll for my little cousin, Katie and she loved it! Here you can see a little better photo of the finished doll....I had to do some things around the neck...there was too big a gap between the stuffed cotton torso and the dress, so I single crocheted sort of a neckline around it to bring it closer to the head....I had a lot of fun making this doll...I think I'd like to make a couple more from the AK Traditions book, but would like to try and sell a couple if I can get the finishing details a little more worked out.....we'll see!

Kelly, my daughter, was happy with  her socks, but she wants them longer, like boot socks or knee socks! I'll have to think about that one and look for a pattern. In the meantime, I started another pair of socks for me! The yarn is just a little thicker and more wool is in it, so they will be for fall days and nights when I finish them. I would love to be a little more adventurous with how the leg part looks, like have a patterned leg, but can't seem to combine a different patterns instructions with the one I've got for the basic toe up sock and have the right number of stitches. Just need more socks experience, I guess....

Photo for this week is from the family reunion....my fiance, Eldy and my sister, Lyle....

Darn, Almost Made It!

I got all the way through the second sock through to the heel, ready to start the leg part, and something went wrong. The working yarn end was on the wrong needle and I couldn't figure out how to join the round for anything, or get the working yarn back to the heel side. I didn't know how to frog back (rip out) or tink back (stitch by stitch) with two circulars. I tried and tried for  an hour to do that, to see if I could get the sock back to where I had just finished up the heel, and I couldn't. There's nobody here where we are staying that could help me, so I ripped out the whole darn sock and then cried. Not just over a silly sock, but because a bunch of things had gone wrong earlier in the day and it was just kind of the thing that put me over the edge. I don't feel as sharp mentally as I used to, and not being able to figure out what I did wrong on some router issues with our computer earlier in the day, and then the sock, just made me so discouraged.

So, I went out for a long bike ride by myself, that helps me when I'm upset.  Eldy was baffled at my tears---why in the world was I upset over a sock? Women's tears and emotions baffle him. But he gave me a big hug, and off I went to try and clear my head and brain of this fog that seems to hang over me sometimes when I try to think about things and how to fix them. I rode for six miles and it really did help me calm down and relax and come back refreshed, ready to tackle that darn sock again! And I did start it again the same day, which was probably not the best decision, but for me, it's like falling off a horse, you gotta get back on and try again. Except if I fell off a horse, that would be it for me! Never again!

So back to the sock I went...and....TADA!!!! I did it! I finished the second sock! Never mind that the ribbing isn't quite the same length as the first ribbing on the first sock! I must have measured wrong or was so anxious to bind off, I didn't quite get the measurement right. The second sock has a little bit shorter ribbing on it...SH-H-H-H! Don't tell my daughter! But I'll probably end up telling her anyway! I think the sox are a little loose, but they fit me ok...could be a little bit tighter, I think. I've started a second pair of sox to try a different yarn...

Our family reunion is coming up soon, like a matter of about five days, and I really need to get that knitted doll finished for my little cousin. It's been on the back burner all this week. Time to get it out and git 'er done! Three days to complete it, shouldn't be any problem....

No photos this week besides the sox except for one of a little girl I took while in the delightful town of Leavenworth, Washington. I know some people, if they follow my travel blog, have seen this photo or one very similar to it before, but I decided I wanted to put my favorite photo of the week on my craft blog and sort of spot light it. I want to have more photos of a general nature along with photos of whatever I'm crafting. I like this photo because she's wearing pink and green and the grass behind her sort of enhances her little outfit......don't you just love the little green shoes and the great big pink floppy hat?  Too sweet......

Until next week, see you then!

One Down, One Left to Go!

Got my first sock done, and I'm happy, it fits! My daughter has the same size foot I do, so if all goes well, this pair of socks will fit her. I noticed that as I have started the second sock, even though I tried to match the color in the pathway of the skein to the same color as the first one, it's slightly different...oh, well! Not sure what I could do differently to make them EXACTLY the same, but that could be another sock method, doing two socks on two circulars--yikes! Not ready for that, yet! From what everybody says, once you get your first pair done, it's like an addiction--you start making LOTS of socks! I can see that happening, which is a good thing, because I have purchased lots of cool sock yarn.....

We have been busy this week visiting family, so this is a short post tonight...still working on my knitted doll, and hopefully, it will all get done before the family reunion on July 21st in Sedona, Arizona. See you next weekend!

A Good Week....

Well, something got accomplished this week...I knit one and a half dishcloths...those are things I enjoy doing because they don't take as much thought as a bigger project. Well, they can take more thought if you are not paying attention to a pattern you are doing. The bright, cheery red, yellow and blue one got frogged twice because somehow I added a stitch and made the pattern get "off". After frogging it back about five rows, I discovered that I really didn't need to frog it, I had the right number of stitches! arrrrggghhh!  I really like 100% cotton dishcloths. They are great for wiping down counters, and doing some washing around the motorhome. Even though I have hand knit about ten so far, some for gifts and some for me, I had a couple that I didn't like the way they worked out with the variegated color scheme. Those I use for more serious cleaning of windows, sills, and scrubbing spots out of things. I'm thinking of making some "spa" cloths out of the nicer cotton yarn and wrapping one envelope style around a wonderful smelling homemade bar of soap (not made by me, too labor intensive in the motor home, I think!). My sister says it's difficult to get a nice, strong scent to a bar of soap, without it being kind of costly. So I think I'll go looking for some online or in the local shops along the way and see what I come up with. My sister bought me some soaps that are rosemary scented, and I found a couple more that have a strong lovely citrus smell. But I want to keep them for myself! Scents are funny...what you think is delightful, someone else might dislike....Hmmmm...if I had more readers, I'd take a poll! What's your favorite scent? There are lavender farms all over the place in Washington, but there's my point--although lots of people love the smell of lavender, I really don't like it at all!

Hurray! The knitted doll is coming along after all!  I've got her partly assembled. This week I redid the head on circulars, and like it much better than the two pieces the directions had me knit the first time around. I've been working on her eyes and taken them out at least three times.  Poor thing! The directions say to use a piece of yarn, separating it into plies and then satin stitching the eyes. The stitching just won't cooperate with the knit stitches and lay flat. Can't get a nice round satin stitched eye for anything! So that's on the back burner for the moment. Maybe I'll work on the hair and her hat this week. The hat needs a crocheted flower. Hmmmm, I just realized I'm glad I haven't sewn on her head and her hat...she's backwards! The jumper front is much prettier!

Also got my first sock going...toe up, two circular needles and the help of a printed out "Come to Silver Socks" pattern. Step by step directions, I'm almost ready for the heel, but not understanding the wrap thing. Going to have to go to youtube and see if that will help me figure out what the heck she's doing on the wraps. There are many ways to do a heel--gusset, no gusset, wrap, no wrapping, but I've got to have the directions have the same number of stitches I do on my needles to try something, so I'm sticking with the Silver socks pattern for a bit. Really hope I don't have to frog this sock. I've done one before this and it came out HUGE! So I've changed my needle size down and hoping that I'll have a sock that will fit this time.....I'm procrastinating on the heel just out of fear of messing it up! The needles are very small, and the thin yarn makes it hard to rip anything out and recover all the stitches, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed this week that I can do it! We'll see what happens.....