Dishcloths?

Dishcloths might not seem the most fun thing to knit...but they can be.  Pinterest, Ravelry, and random blogs on the internet have a wide variety of patterns.  Many of these patterns are free.  As everyone, even those with a dishwasher, has to wash a few dishes this makes a practical and quickly done gift.

Dishcloths are done in many themes:  animals, plants, pictures, sayings.   Finding the right pattern for your victim  recipient is half of the fun.

One day at work, we were joking around.   Out of that came a need make someone a special dishcloth.   Had I not been able to find a very nicely done (and free) pattern, I would have drafted one.

As I have a nice supply of Willow Yarns Sudsy at home, the only challenge was picking the color.  That problem was solved by grabbing the ball closest to hand...which also happened to be just about my favorite.    One cast on and 47 rows later.....voila!

Thank you holynarf for the pattern and the fun!

The Polar Bear and the "In Threes" have gone...

The polar bear is done.    I really liked the way that the head was done in the version of a bear.   What did I like most of all?   The nose was knit separately and attached.   It was easier to make sure the

nose looked the way that I wanted it to look.   I also liked doing the eyes before attaching the head.  It was much easier to place the eyes and make them look nice.

Doing faces on stuffed animals is not my favorite thing to do as I am always afraid of making the animal look.....psycho.   The animal is supposed to be a friend for a little one, not the stuff of which nightmares are made.

The tail on this polar bear was cute too.   I had thought about skipping the tail but then decided

that I needed to do it. The tail is not stuffed, but puffs nicely on its own.

Helen, my sister, likes the creatures to smile.   This was easy to do as I also did this before I closed the head.   The pattern's creature used a small, straight-line mouth that just did not look friendly.   I used duplicate stitch to make a smile that would be hard to pick out.  In fact, everything was sewn together firmly to make it easier to play with the bear without killing it.

The Wendy Eider yarn that I used for the "fur"

part of the bear was really not bad to knit with.  Dropping a stitch was NOT a good idea.   This bear felt soft and very cuddly which was the point. I hope this happy bear will make Henry a happy boy.

Rory is Henry's baby sister.   If I send something to Henry, I also send something for Rory (and vice versa).  

The In Threes pattern has been on my list of little sweaters to try for a long time.    Rick had gotten really beautiful dark rose skeins of Encore for a

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different project.   I made the year old size.   When I was done with the knitting, I had maybe two yards left of one skein.

Part of the last two yards I used to sew the buttons onto the sweater so that I could have the look that I wanted.

The buttons came from a great Etsy shop and were perfect with the yarn.

This pattern has the excellent qualities of being a quick knit and very, very cute.