Fiber Babble: To Answer Some Questions

To Answer Some Questions

July 23, 2006

...about the dishcloth items in my previous post:

The large one is the "Horseshoe Pattern Dishcloth" from The Dishcloth Boutique, page 1.

The smaller one is an old standby, frequently called "Grandmother's Favorite". I didn't do plain old garter stitch for the body, but tried (with varying degrees of success) to incorporate the cool textured pattern from my first dishcloth.

The little bag is from the Knitting Pattern a Day calendar. I threw away the 'day' after I'd figured out the concept. I've also seen it called "Double Knitting". An explanation and video is at KnittingHelp.com, a little more than halfway down the page. If you want to try a pattern, the one on the KnittingHelp page takes you to an About.com page. I try to avoid About.com at all costs, so I found a general instruction page for you at Knitting for a Change.

The gist of it is this: Cast on an even number of stitches. Row 1: K1, *slip 1 purl-wise, K1* to the last stitch, end with (an additional) K1. Lather, rinse, repeat. The point is to, after the first row is knit and slipped, do the opposite thing the next time around - knit the slips and slip the knits, keep the first and last stitch of every row a knit. I played with the yarn placement to figure out how to do 1/1 ribbing while everything was still on one needle; though the original instructions I had said to separate the stitches by putting every other one onto a stitch holder, working the 1/1 rib on the sts left on the needle, binding off, then transferring the sts from the holder to the needle and working the rib. Just a little bit of seaming along the sides finished it off.

I think I also pretended that I could toss in a few yo's to make holes for the draw cord. Not all that successful. I ended up threading the draw cord (simple chain, like the beginning of a crochet project) through something, though I don't for a moment believe that it was actually where the yo's were.

And just in case you care about how to thread the draw cord through: I had left a tail on the cord, threaded the tail through my fat plastic yarn needle and used that to weave the cord in and out. It crossed my mind to try to do it without the needle, but I decided that was the stupidest thing I'd ever thought (to date).

Labels: knitting