Dishcloth Mania

Whew! I finally have a chance to post. Flylady has been keeping me busy this week! You can see what I've been doing here.

We spent last weekend in Myrtle Beach for my younger son's national basketball championship. We had lots of fun, but we didn't get to spend much time at the beach -- too busy running to different gyms for games.

We made it to the beach Friday afternoon. Te'Quan, the big guy on the left, had never seen the ocean before, so it was a treat sharing his first beach experience with him. My son Kyle coaxed him into the water, but he was a little freaked out by the waves and the saltiness of the water, and he definitely didn't like the sand on his wet skin.

He's our "gentle giant" -- 12 years old, 6'4" and almost 200 pounds. Wow! He was our almost-adopted son this season, traveling with us to all of the tournaments. What a sweetie. You can see how he dwarfs Kyle (and everyone else, including the coaches!).

Our older son had no complaints about the beach. He enjoyed relaxing and tanning.
We visited "Fun World" which had miniature golf and go carts. I think we made it through 9 holes of mini golf before the guys became totally bored with it. The go carts were a big hit!

One of the highlights of the weekend was our visit to Medieval Times, where we ate "baby dragon" and other fine delicacies (okay, so it was chicken, ribs, potatoes, soup, and apple turnovers) with our hands and watched a stunning contest between six handsome knights on beautiful horses.

How did we do in the tournament? We came in 9th place, but the good news is that the only two teams who beat us were the two teams who played each other in the championship game. If you have to lose, might as well lose to the champs!

On the knitting front, while we were at the beach I had plenty of time to knit. I wanted to work on something that would allow me to take a smaller loom, so I decided to work on some dishcloths. I am completely hooked on these darling cotton squares!

I used two looms to make the cloths -- my fine gauge 12" AJAL and my Wonderloom. The fine gauge makes them a little too tight for my taste, especially after they have been washed. But since many of the patterns call for more than 35 stitches, I made most of them on my fine gauge loom.

I've knitted a couple of patterns that Loomin Cat has converted for the looms.

This is the teacup pattern, knitted backward! I cast on left to right and started row one on the right (going toward the left). Nope -- gotta do it the other way. I did it again and here's what I got:

Yay me -- it's right!

So then I did a musical note:

. . . a turtle (this one was done on my small gauge Wonderloom):

. . . and one with three crosses (you can't see the crosses very well; I should have used a solid yarn):

We had our knitting group today; only three ladies were able to come. Instead of doing a drawing as I had planned (to give one of the dishcloths away), I just gave each lady there one. They seemed to love them.

I ordered a dishcloth rake from Loomin Cat this week, and I'm so excited to get it.

I'm going through my Knitting Stitch Bible and 1000 Great Knitting Motifs books to get ideas for other dishcloths. I charted a pattern for a butterfly and am working on writing it up (I like working from charts, but for the dishcloths it's faster for me to read a pattern). As soon as I finish it and my rake arrives, I'll knit it and share the pattern if it turns out well.

Okay, I have to stop playing now and get to work. I received a shipment of jewelry this week that I have to get up on my website. After that, I think I'll play some more! LOL

Thanks for reading!