summer cotton and wraps

While the mornings this week are cool enough for me not to receive strange looks from wearing my shawl or fingerless gloves on the train I am in full fledged cotton mode. I’m years behind in house-warming gifts and hope to make some progress this summer (some eventual recipients have moved more than once and I’m negligent.).

two washclothsI’m knitting and mailing piles of Grandmother’s Favorite Dishcloth Grandmother’s Favorite Dishcloth knit on 4.5mm needles and various cottons including these two which were knit out of one ball of Bernat Organic Cotton in Hemp. In general I get two cloths out of each ball of cotton I use. I have a huge stash of “kitchen cotton” and hope to use up more of it by the end of the summer (which I will say is Labor Day).

Basket Rib Hand TowelI also finally knit up some other yarn that has been hanging out in the stash for a while. This is a photo of Spot hanging out with the results of a ball of Knit Picks Cotlin in Royal Plum (one of the few colours they had when I bought it over a year ago). This is the Basket Rib Hand Towel by Traci Heiner and was knit on 4mm needles.

Gull Lace Cloth, detailI had picked up a second ball of Bernat Organic Cotton a while ago, this time in Mineral Spring. I want to make myself a February Lady Sweater as well as a “normal sized” one. My last attempt at this sweater (a while ago) didn’t go well, so I decided to knit up this cotton as a gigantic swatch (ok, it’s not that big, it’s just about the size of two wash cloths) of the gull lace pattern. I think it came out quite well and I now have the lace pattern down.

Watching the OlympicsIt’s the Olympics and in Ravelry there is a crazy going on known as the “ravelympics” and I entered three weights classes for the WIP Wrestling event. While I highly doubt I’ll medal, I hope to continue to make considerable progress on at least 2/3 of the projects I’ve “entered”.

  1. In bulky weight is the Clapotis which is for V&J’s First Anniversary (at this rate). It’s going well and once I started purling the stitches to be dropped it started to zoom along. However as this is a big bulky wool lump I am not working on it as much as I should.
  2. In worsted is the fluted ribs wrap which due to a miscalculation of gauge (despite making weight) is hopefully further along than I thought. My current calculations give me only a few spare yards (will I ever learn and just buy 10 balls) so I’m knitting fast to make up for it. ;) The wrap saw lots of attention last night as shown by this photo.
  3. In the lace weight is Seraphim. I hope to finish the first chart by the end of these Olympics.