Ballband dishcloth craze

In all my obsessive internet searching, I came across Mason-Dixon Knitting. I instantly fell in love. After I got my bearings back, I drove my cute self to Walmart and Hobby Lobby in search of #7 needles and fun, bright cotton yarn.

Per usual, I wasn't failed. I bought a half dozen balls of bright, fun colors along with some metal #7 needles, and a few other notions. I had previously printed out the ballband pattern and was determined to tackle it.

My novice skills were tested! I didn't know how to read patterns well, slip stitches were foreign but I was going to kick this pattern's ass.

And you know what?? I did!

Fraternal twins:

I instantly fell in lust. The only thing I didn't like was the size. I did Hard Math and figured I could cast on 39 instead of 45 and my dishcloths would still be big enough but not THAT huge.

Al and I recently too a road trip to aforementioned sorority sister's wedding and I set a goal of knitting two dishcloths in the car. Never mind we sat in the car for 5 minutes in front of our townhome the night we arrived so I could bind off -- I made my goal :)

I've now made 5 of these dishcloths and decided they'd make perfect Christmas gifts! I bought an irresponsible amount of cotton yarn from Elmore Pisgah (makers of my beloved Peaches 'n Cream cotton yarn) in a variety of colors and have quite the project ahead of me.

Oh and in the spirit of full disclosure, my shitty math skills caused me to order twice as much yarn as I need. Thank goodness this stuff is inexpensive and handy else I'd be pissed!

Stay tuned for more Ballbands!

Warshrags

Yeah. I said it. Warshrag. WARSH. Do y'all have any idea how much that word hurts me? I think my left index finger is cramping from reaching for the "R" key. Baby calls them dishcloths and that's what she'll continue to call them. This warshrag business...I just can't go there.

Moving onward.

I decided that while I wanted to expand my knitting skills, I didn't want to waste time and good money on expensive yarn. Whatever is a girl to do?? I sweet-talked Al into being a Big Strong Man and carrying my tote o' yarn up from the depths of the basement. Inside I found some looooovely cotton yarn. I got to knitting and made some pretty stinkin cute dishcloths:

Seed stitch:

Basketweave (I winged this one. Baby couldn't read patterns at this point):
Pretttttty cute :) I was delighted with myself. I just HAD to buy more yarn! HAD TO. I made a quick lunch-break trip to Walmart and got some pretty pretty colors and started pouring over the internets for good ideas.

What I found was a beauuuuuutiful scarf pattern, the Ballband Dishcloth craze, and lots of things that were too hard for me. Oh and I found Knitting Help. This site is badass. It's gotten me through a lot of rough times.

In the midst of all this my favorite LYS held their annual Huge Sale. I was drawn to it like White Trash to Twinkies. Al was sweet and went along (conveniently enough, his favorite coffee shop is next door) and picked out some nice, manly gray yarn for himself. I purchased 2 balls and was off! Oh and I bought a half dozen balls of Alpaca for meeeee but who's keeping track of that?? ;)

So I have yarn and nothing to do with it. The horror! Back to this beauuuuuuuuutiful scarf pattern...It's lovely. It required minimal pattern-reading skills (handy since I have zero), was simple, AND looked really really hard (key when you're Egotistical Baby). I didn't want to break out the gray stuff yet, so I whipped up a dishcloth in the pattern. I had a sorority sister (I told y'all I was in the south!) getting hitched and thought handknits would be a fantastic gift! I just happened to have cotton yarn in "our colors" so I started in on the beauuuuuutiful scarf pattern on this cotton yarn. One and a half pattern repeats later I had this:


It's too bad you can't REALLY see the pattern b/c of the variegation of the yarn, but you get the idea. The beauuuuuutiful scarf has scalloped, rolling edges and is just so so so darn pretty. And Manly. Don't forget, my hunky, Big Strong Man Al is going to be wearing this scarf.

Anyway, dishcloths need friends so I made another seed stitch one to go with it, shoved a Walmart gift card in the center and tied a white ribbon around it all. Thoughtful, inexpensive and useful. Baby is unstoppable.

Oh but she's not...I hope my foreshadowing of the beauuuuuutiful scarf disaster wasn't too subtle...because things make a terrible turn for the worse very very soon...