I would forgive you for thinking that I knit nothing but dishcloths…

like these for example

But I don’t. I just use dishcloths as a bit of mindless knitting. The 2nd and 3rd set I knitted for a friends fundraiser. Unfortunately no one liked the red/green set enough to buy it so the friend made her husband buy it for her and she loves it.

In April, my brothers girlfriend made an off-hand remark about wanting a rainbow cushion, a stripey rainbow cushion. So unbeknown to her, my little sister and I went out the next day and hunted down some rainbow acrylic. Athough she had asked for stripes, all I could see were millions of ends to weave in, so rainbow coloured yarn was located.

I’m really very proud of myself for this cushion. It involved colourwork and charts, two things I’ve never been good at. Each row of hearts took an hour, so it really took a while to knit and finish. I have to say that she loves it though which makes it all worthwhile.

   

Another non-dishcloth is this little Pebbles vest. I’ve knitted another one too (in orange) but it remains photoless at the minute. After much deliberation, the knitting group decided that ladybirds were unisex enough and since then every button has been a ladybird! With the leftover yarn I made a little beanie.

 

I’ve a few more wips that just need their ends sorted out, but for now its back to the dishcloths I’m afraid.

Not a dishcloth

For a change, a project that isn’t a dishcloth. Don’t panic though, I’ve more cloths knitted up but thats for another day.

My brother and his girlfriend are expecting a little one this winter… so it obviously needs a sleeping bag cozy thing.  The buttons are actually sewn on straight, not too sure what happened there, lol.

Anyway, the pattern for the baby cozy is free although I have it in the book which includes instructions for the easy access flap at the bottom. I know my colour choices are a bit random but the parents-to-be are a bit random themselves.

A little destash

Despite my attempts to NOT buy yarn this year, my stash has increased by epic proportions since 15 April. Although I have Ravelry, I also keep a speadsheet in work so when I feel weak I tot up the yardage and convert it into miles. The current figure was 380 odd balls and 51.7 miles. A bit too huge for comfort.

Thankfully last night I was chatting with two new recent knit night additions, who being poor students, didn’t have a stash. I offered to have a rummage and give them the stuff I no longer wanted.

And here it is. It mightn’t look like much, but there’s lace, sock, sport, DK, aran and chunky weights in there, so the yardage fairly mounts up.

Yardage totals 12,976.5 yards!!

Staggeringly thats 7.4 miles!!!!!

I’m thrilled, as are the knitters who are taking it off my hands.

And there’s more….

As I mentioned yesterday, I was on a little bit of a washcloth kick, and its not over yet!

After the scrappy cloths, I went back to a pattern and this time it was double bump which I knitted before years ago as Christmas presents. I never did get any comments on whether they were a nice gift or not, but its a simple pattern and knitted as per the instructions. Despite the yarn being aran weight and not worsted, its a fairly decent size.

Following the patterned cloth, I wanted something mindless so made up my own. To be fair, you can’t really concentrate on a pattern when NCIS is on now, can you?

This was swiftly followed by my own personal washcloth pattern hell. This is the second time I’ve knitted this cloth and the second time I’ve made a right mess of it.  It’s not hard, not in the slightest, but I just can’t get it.  The cloths are robust, sturdy and firm. They’re fantastic. But for the life of me I just seem to get it wrong every time. I will try again….. just not yet.

The name of my current nemesis? Chinese waves dishcloth.

 

In the above photo you can just make out near the top where its not quite right…. and again near the bottom of the photo. Some”thing” went wrong and continued to be wrong for a while and then, quite suddenly, fixed itself again. That “thing” is my brain. I’m sure I’ll get me head around this simple pattern eventually. I’ve plenty more rico cotton to try!

A new craze

To celebrate my 100th day cold sheeping my lovely hubby bought me yarn. Yes, while not quite grasping the concept of the no new yarn, he did a really nice thing. So I decided that everyone should get a new washcloth.

The first cloth, in bottle green rico cotton, is the Waffle stitch cloth and knitted as pattern, needles n all. However, because the yarn isn’t a worsted weight, its a bit on the narrow side but still useful and quick enough to knit.

The second cloth was just a simple square I made up myself, in a nice light green…

While the third was just a stripey scrappy affair… .

And yes… there are more but I think 3 a day is enough to bore anyone!

New arrivals

SDC10407
Originally uploaded by ropeadope_ie

I know, its been forever since I was last here, but nothing has been finished in a long time.

Last weekend we were snowed in and the current projects were boring me. So I hunted out some cotton, got myself a bib pattern and got started.

The first bib seemed a little small for my liking, so I added 10 stitches to the second and carried on as normal.

Two bibs later I still had yarn left - not too good for my destashing effort. So I hunted ravelry again and came up with a burp cloth. I cast on and knitted until I was just short of running out of yarn.

Ball finished :) Ironically, just as I finished knitting the burp cloth I commented that "knowing my luck my cousin will have a baby boy" and guess what?! Baby James was born the next afternoon!

Guess whats happening to the pink ball of cotton? Same again!!!!!

There has been knitting....

Just no finishing of the knitted things.  I have the back of my brothers jumper nearly finished but haven't got the interest to finish it. I think that once I get over the hump of having a section completely finished I'll get the spur I need to do the fronts and sleeves....I'll knit both at the same time  so I HAVE to finish them.

I'm also knitting a little cardigan because the jumper is too large to take out with me. It's taken me a while to get the increases done as I really don't like the yarn. But as its in the stash it MUST be knitted! Tonight I managed to finish the increases and am now zipping through the body section and making myself quite happy in the process.

And because I don't have enough WIPs on the go, I started a shawl on Wednesday. I have a fear of lace patterns, lace weight yarn and intended yarn overs which occur more than once in a pattern row. This shawl is in sock weight and has a fair few yarn overs.... I tried it twice and gave up and thankfully another knitter came to the rescue, knitted the first few rows for me and sent me on my merry way. Needless to say it's been in its project ever since and completely ignored.  it'll get knitted eventually.

A wipdown is in my future I think... I've about 6 hanging around and some have deadlines. Nothing like some knitting procrastination to spur you on!

Update

I tried knitting the cardigan for the brother but it just wasn't out, so I ripped out the sleeves and am very nearly at the arm hole shaping for the yarns second incarnation. Hopefully I'll get the back finished tomorrow and start on the fronts.

As today is the last day of January its time to post the yardage total:

            1,979 yards out of stash.
            28 December 2012 was date of last yarn purchase
           
Not doing too badly.

I've signed up to take part in a "mad dash" on ravelry and put myself forward for 2,000 yards in 6 weeks. I see a fair few double stranded dog blankets in my immediate future!

Oops

I've a few inches to go on the rather heavy sleeves and I think I need to rip them out. They're far too wide for my skinny armed brother.

Despite the fact that I did actually swatch for this, I'm still unsure of what actual size to knit so I'll recheck the gauge on the (nearly finished) sleeves and go from there.

I got him to measure the length of his arm last night, 20 inches, which in the pattern is the extra large size, but the length of his back is the small size. See, problems all round.

I'll see what happens.

Good start to the year

Just to prove why I've not been blogging on a regular basis, may I present my finished object:

Miracles happen

Tonight after I finished a ballband dishcloth, a miracle occured.


I started swatching.

Slowly but surely

Well this week my stash has decreased by over a mile courtesy of some garter stitch doggy blankets, finishing a pair of socks and selling some yarn.

A decrease is a decrease no matter how I get there.

I'm quite please that I've used up 7 balls of yarn this year so far, given that its only the start of the month. Hopefully the pace will continue and if so, I could end up with a much reduced stash by 31 December!

Goal!!

I tallied my stash last night. It was scary.

In 2012 I knitted 18,448 yards.

In my language thats 10.48 MILES

The scary thing is that I currently have 51miles in my stash which, if I don't buy any new yarn, will last me 5 YEARS!!!

Pretty scary stuff.

So my goal for 2013 is to try my best to cold sheep, knit from stash and keep the wips under control. I finished the dog blanket on Sunday night so have been working away on a pair of sock which were meant to be for me, although I think I know someone who would appreciate them.