A Great Concert & Some Dishcloths

Okay, first I have to rave about a great concert we experienced last night. We took the boys to the first day of King's Fest (a three-day Christian concert) at Kings Dominion.

We spent the afternoon riding all the roller coasters that I used to try to coax Josh into riding with me when he (and I) were younger. Well, now he's almost 17 and LOVES anything fast (especially if it has flips and turns), and now HE is the one coaxing ME into riding with him. Being the good mother that I am , I rode every one he took me to. Kyle wouldn't ride the Grizzly or the Anaconda (even Gerard stayed off of that one), but good old mom (and I do feel old now) rode them all. I was so glad when it was finally time to make our way to the concert!

I have to admit now that I was very tempted to take my knitting into the concert, because I was convinced that I wouldn't enjoy it. I love praise and worship music, but this concert included a band that the boys love, which I thought would mean aching ears for me. The bands that played last night were BreatheDeep (we hadn't heard of them, but they were really good), Kutless, and Newsboys.

Well, my husband and I agreed that this was probably the best concert we had ever experienced. Yes, Kutless was loud. You know, I hear Josh's music coming from his room (he plays guitar and is usually singing and playing along), and I thought it was just loud, headbanging rock music. He kept telling me he was listening to Christian music, but I had my doubts. But listening to their music and hearing the message they are trying to convey to young people, I realized that this "joyful noise" truly is pleasing to God. I'm so thankful that my sons have music that touches them and fills them with the RIGHT message. There are so many negative influences in the world today; I'm thankful that a group of talented young men are using their talent to reach young people for Christ.

Josh and Kyle thought they wouldn't enjoy Newsboys, because their music really isn't their cup of tea (they say it's more "pop" music). Just one song into the concert changed their tunes in a hurry. They were fantastic! What an AWESOME performance they gave! But what really struck me was that their true aim was to glorify God and to be used by Him. At one point, the lead singer gave his testimony of how God changed his life, and he prayed with us and led people to make a commitment to accept Jesus. Wow. Then in the next few minutes, we were "rocking out" again. It was so incredibly uplifting to look around and see hundreds of people with their hands held high, giving praise to God.

So today I don't have a voice (I gave it to Newsboys), I'm completely worn out, I feel like I've been hit by a truck, but my spirit is soaring!

Okay, on to knitting. I received my dishcloth rake from Cathy. I was so impressed first of all with the quick shipping, and the quality is great. It has smooth nylon pegs and is very lightweight. The gauge is between fine and small gauge, so it's perfect for making those sweet little squares.

My first project was a butterfly dishcloth. I found the butterfly motif in my 1000 Great Knitting Motifs book and made a pattern for a dishcloth.


First I made the butterfly with all purl stitches. It shows up better this way than using the garter stitch, but I don't like it as much.

Here it is with the butterfly made with the garter stitch. It doesn't show up as well, but I just like the overall look better. I will post patterns for both cloths as soon as I get a minute to type them up.


I love stars, so I knitted this star dishcloth that I found here.

I love using patterns that have you knit all even rows because they are super easy to convert. All you have to do is change the knits to purls and purls to knits on every odd row.

For example, if the pattern says to do a garter stitch border for the first four rows (which is knit every row in needle knitting), you just change the odd rows to purl, so it would be Row 1 - purl, Row 2 - knit, Row 3 - purl, Row 4 - knit. Then an odd row that says: k3, p31, k3 would be changed to p3, k31, p3.

For patterns that don't have you knit all even rows, then you just leave the even rows alone and change all odd rows (knits to purls and purls to knits).

I haven't tried converting any patterns that have anything more complicated than simple knits and purls, but I'm sure I will. There are so many great dishcloth patterns out there. So many patterns, so little time!

Thanks for reading!