5 Ball Band Dishcloths, 4 Euroflax Washcloths, 2 Pairs of Fetching, and a Broad Street Mitten WIP

Great, now I've got 12 Days of Xmas stuck in my head. All I'm missing is something in threes. (And 12-6.) Despite thinking I wouldn't do holiday knitting this year, I've ended up with quite the pile of FOs. I decided to simplify by making a whole bunch of Ball Band Dishcloths. They're super easy, look nifty, and are cheap. Ravelry details


I picked up some Euroflax from Purlescence and whipped up some washcloths. At first I was going to copy some hemp washcloths I saw at Whole Foods. They were loose stockinette with an eyelet border on all 4 sides. I tried recreating that effect with the Euroflax and it just looked like ass. I did a little Ravelry research and found the Eight Linen Washcloths patterns, which proved what Euroflax is capable of with a little coaxing. Being very lazy, I put together my own lace washcloths by picking lace patterns out of the 1st Barbara Walker Treasury that only had a few pattern rows. I ended up with Vine Lace, Crest of the Wave, Horseshoe Lace, and Fir Cone Lace. I was bothered by the tendency of the yarn to be very splitty!!, but I didn't have trouble with the feel of the linen on my hands. Linen likes to be machine washed and dried in order to soften up a bit. In my first blocking attempt, I washed and dried until totally dry. Then I had a lumpy but soft piece of lace. I then got the piece wet and pinned it out to block. When it dried, I had a flat but horribly stiff piece of lace. The next time, I only let the dryer run until the cloths were about 80% dry. I pinned them out just enough to open up and flatten them out a bit. They retained their softness after air drying the rest of the way. Ravelry details

I finally jumped on the Fetching bandwagon. I got some Malabrigo from Purlescence, and made 2 pairs from one skein. Unless there's some kind of gift-giving emergency, I intend to keep a pair. I LOVE this yarn!! It's unbelievably soft! I suspect there will be pilling, but I'm ok with that. The picot edge grew on me, and I ended up really loving this pattern. On the 2nd pair, I changed the placement of the thumb on the right glove to mirror that on the left. Basically, I did the 7-stitch waste yarn thing at the end of the row (the 1st seven of the last eight stitches) instead of at the beginning of the row. Next time I'd also move the beginning of the thumb round on the right glove so I wouldn't have the cast-off tail on the more visible side of the thumb. Ravelry details

I've also started some Broad Street Mittens for the husbeast. I was going to make Dashing, but Bryan wanted half-fingered gloves with a mitten flap. Apparently one of his friends had some store-bought gloves like that. I knew there was a knitty pattern just like that. Even better, it uses sock yarn and the only yarn in the whole store Bryan liked was sock yarn. I had just been planning on holding (at least) 2 strands together. We were at Purlescence for the Fiber Fiend trunk show, and I picked up some bamboo/merino roving in the Mars colorway. It's SO pretty!
Bryan was taken aback by the Swamp colorway. I didn't feel like spinning yarn for what I intended to be one of his holiday gifts, so I ended up buying 2 skeins of the merino sock yarn in Swamp. I found out that Bryan liked the colors because they reminded him of space LEGO sets. My husband is special. But not as special as the people who wrote the Wikipedia article on LEGO space sets. Apparently Bryan's memories stem from the M:Tron era of 1990-1991. BTW, WTF is up with this pattern? It lists 2 different needle sizes, but never mentions needle size in the text of the pattern! I really expect more from knitty's editors. Also, there's no instructions for the 2nd mitt. It just says "reverse everything." Everything? Interesting. Whatever. Ravelry details