Tag Archives: Louise Sarrazin

Humble house stuff

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If you visit this blog more often than every few months chances are you’ll see that I frequently knit dishcloths. Yep. I like to knit one of the most often poke-funable knits out there: dishcloths. Maybe second only to toilet paper roll covers. But those are more often crocheted. For me dishcloths are a ton ‘o fun. Quick gratification. And I have people around me who love to receive these things. Plus we use them a lot in our kitchen.

You’re probably wondering about these humble houses. They’re a new pattern from Amy Marie Vold: Cape Cottage. This slip-stitch (mosaic) pattern is available as one pattern download. But it’s also included as one of the six patterns in her New England Village ebook.

I knit my Cape Cods in Knit Picks Dishie. Dishie isn’t as rustic a yarn as Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream, the dishcloth yarn that’s many knitters’ first choice. But I like its slightly more refined appearance.

And, just for the fun of it, I often knit these mosaic cloths in pairs, switching out the main and contrasting color.

Speaking of colors, I like to keep a good supply of Dishie colors in my stash.

I can admittedly go a tad overboard. I buy only the Dishie sales and make my yarn bucks stretch. It’s good stuff put up in 100 gram balls.

This Jalepeno/Creme Brulee Dishie creation is another in Vold’s New England Village Ebook: Cozy Saltbox. It’s a quick fun knit and you end up with something useful.

What New England village would be complete without an Old School?

Now, for a spelling rant. I know that extra e’s are often used for…for…for some reason. The name of this pattern is actually “Olde” with a superfluous Middle English “e.” I think it’s supposed to flag something that’s quaint. Comfortably old-fashioned as in Ye Olde Cheese Shoppe. It mostly makes my inner editor curdle though.

Olde School Dishcloth is a wonderful, rhythmic knit. I used Queensland Collection’s Coastal Cotton. My sense of it is it’s a tad beefier than Dishie but a tad less rustic as compared to Sugar ‘n Cream.

I’ve stocked a nice selection of Coastal Cotton too.

Here’s another fun set, knit in Coastal Cotton:

I can’t resist calling this pair my Knittany Lions because their muzzles make them look like a Nittany Lion. Yes, the Penn State team mascot. But also the mountain lion that apparently once lived on Pennsylvania’s Mount Nittany. Anyway, the pattern’s name is Tame the Dishes. That works.

Next up is a set of dishcloths, freebies, designed by Joan Janes. I knit her trio of cloths, Three Dishcloths, in Coastal Cotton.

Janes designed the patterns to use only one skein of Sugar ‘n Cream. I prefer less dainty sized cloths than a 30-stitch cast-on will produce, as in the Waffle pattern in the foreground. That pattern works with any multiple of 4, plus 2. So I cast on 42 and ended up with about a 7 inch square, using only 24 grams of yarn. The Garter Basketweave pattern in the middle works with a multiple of 4, plus 3. I cast on 43 and ended up with a cloth about 7.5 inches square. That one took 32 grams of yarn. The Ridge & Rib pattern in the back works with an odd number of stitches. I cast on 37 and 26 grams left me with a square of about 7 inches.

Sometimes a dishcloth knitter wants a basically mindless pattern. Janes’s trio of cloths is great for such times.

Louise Sarazzin’s Sunflower Basket is not challenging but it’s also not mindless. Goldilocks might say it’s “just right.”

That’s Dishie on the left in Creme Brulee and Coastal Cotton on the right in Goldenrod.

Until working this pattern I’d never worked the vertical wrap stitch that appears throughout the flower basket. It’s easy. On a wrong-side row you work a yarn over, slip one stitch purlwise with yarn in the back, knit one across the length of the basket. You’re creating an extra stitch with each yarn over. Then, in the next row, once you get to the basket, you knit 2 together through the back loops to return to the proper stitch count. Easy peasy.

If you’re bobble allergic this cloth could be the cure because there are quite a few bobbles. Rx: Knit 30 teeny 3-row bobbles and get plenty of rest.

One yarn, two projects

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Isn’t it a beauty? It’s Tonia Barry’s Underhill wrap. I knit mine in the now-discontinued Classic Elite Legend, an 80% merino, 20% silk Aran weight. To me it feels like a worsted weight. The gauge for the project is 18 stitches and 29 rows in garter stitch to 4 inches.

Barry has designed extensively for Classic Elite. She, joined by Susan Mills and Kim Barnette, now release patterns under the umbrella of the Knitting Union. The trio was Classic Elite’s main design team and released more than 1200 patterns for the  company before it shuttered its doors.

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”―Obi-Wan Kenobi, sensing the destruction of Alderaa.

Classic Elite collapsing was a very big deal. But Knitting Union is now a pretty big deal too. They are hosting a knit-along on Ravelry that started June 15th and won’t end until September 15th if you want to join us. Pick any of their many patterns and just set to knitting and chatting.

Underhill was a fun, quick knit. That very lush spine of cable through the garter stitch background is the best! Here’s another look at Underhill. It’s been such a chilly spring that I’ve already been able to wear it.

And next check out Lalibela from Kino Knits. It’s a cute hat knit in the same Legend chartreuse colorway. It even somewhat echoes Underhill in its cable and garter stitch sections.

It’s apparently meant to be worn cables-forward, But with that little dip in the ribbing caused by the tug of the cables, I rather like letting the garter stitch sections frame the ears.

It even has a cool crown decrease:

Lalibela. I figured the hat’s name was yet another in a series of oddly named patterns. Live and learn. Lalibela is actually a town in the highlands of Ethiopia. It’s a heritage pilgrimage site, primarily for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Some of the churches date to the 12th century and many of them feature small arched stone windows that inspired the design of this hat.

So, from the sublime to the mundane. Dishcloths. “Yes, she still knits them but worsted weight cotton kills her hands now.” Both of these next cloths are knit in Knitpicks Dishie, a kitchen cotton that’s a tad less rustic and less hard on the hands than Sugar ‘n Creme, the dishcloth workhorse. This one is Louise Sarrzin’s Sunflower Basket Dishcloth.

Ok. So you don’t like to knit dishcloths and you think they are a waste of yarn and a bacteria haven. (Hint, zap the dishcloth in the microwave while it’s wet to kill any beasties.) But admit it. This basket of sunflowers will put a smile on your face and help you whistle while you work.

This next Dishie cloth, also knit in the Creme Brulee colorway, is Aimee Alexander’s Himalayan Salt.

It’s a very fast knit. And your dishcloth gets to pretend it’s sophisticated because of the simple lace pattern.

Bankhead is Susie Gourlay’s free hat pattern that’s been knit and posted on 6773 (and still counting) Ravelry project pages. You don’t get those kind of numbers without being one good hat. You can knit and wear it slouchy.

Or you can go more traditional and just cuff it.

The top is ruly. That’s not a word but it should be. Think of it as the opposite of unruly.

I knit Bankhead in leftover Paton’s Decor. It was leftover from a scarf I wanted to knit: Classic Elite’s Lavish Rib Cable Scarf.  I needed about 400 yards, 405.2 to be exact, of worsted weight and I was just off my yarn diet and didn’t want to splurge yet. The local yarn shop I went to was very low on stock, waiting for news of how much the new landlord would be raising rent. I liked the shade of navy (“rich country blue”) and figured Decor would work fine. It 25% wool, 75% acrylic and will be easy care.

This scarf is an older Classic Elilte pattern, available for download on Patternfish–until they folded on June 16, 2019. As with Underhill, it was that central cable that intrigued me enough to buy the pattern while Patternfish was doing its last gasp thing.

Obviously, this scarf’s knit lengthwise and that cable is manipulated across the middle row. The only modifications I made were to make it longer by casting on 328 stitches rather than 250. That increased stitch count worked for another Raveler, but my mileage varied. To keep the rib pattern going, I needed to decrease 4 stitches (instead of two) as the pattern changed to 2 by 2 rib to work the cable. So, in the section after the cable, I also increased 4 rather than 2. And I  decided I wanted to try to emphasize the cable row more, so I added 2 rows of 2 by 2 cable, both before and after the cable row.

I like this scarf pattern, a lot, including because of this nifty trick it can do.

About the yarn shop? She lives! Spruce Shadow Farms in Alpena!

The lowly dishcloth

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three_spaThe designers of this set, Cindy Abernethy and Rebecca Coday, call it “Pearl Spa Cloths.” Spa Cloths. Pretty fancy lingo. Their patterns were part of the 2014 Rose City Yarn Crawl collection. That was a collaboration of 18 yarn shops in the Portland, Oregon area. The entire collection was briefly offered free on Ravelry. Since then this pattern (at least) has been peeled off and it’s sold on Ravelry. Unfortunately, the patterns were riddled with errors. But they’ve been corrected on the Rav pattern page. I assume the PDF being sold has been corrected as well.

Here’s a closer look at Barred Scallops, knitted in Knit Picks Dishie, the Conch colorway:

orange_spa

Here’s Chevron in Dishie, Azure:

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And this is Horseshoe, in Dishie Tranquil:

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Difficult to imagine a spa cloth named Horsehoe, but maybe. Nice dishcloths. And, yes, if you knit them in organic cotton, or a bunch of natural shades, you could pretend they are spa cloths.

Every once in awhile, the lowly dishcloth calls. This was my last bout of dishclothitus. There was also this one. This one. And this. Some knitters, not me, have been known to poke a bit of fun at dishcloth knitting. I enjoy it. And they do disappear from my holiday pick-your-gifts basket.

This recent bout was pretty intense, though. It was my first time knitting with Dishie. Excellent kitchen cotton.

This pair is Deb Buckingham’s “Spring Swatch Cloth.” She doesn’t want to call it a dishcloth either, I guess.

spring_both

I was gifted a Spring, 2015 copy of the magazine “Love of Knitting” and this pattern is included. It was error-free and quite fun (and quick) to work up.

I recently discovered Louise Sarrazin’s patterns. She’s not afraid to call a dishcloth a dishcloth. This is the Sunflower Basket Dishcloth, available in Sarrazin’s Ravelry store.

Sunflowers copy

C’mon…that’s got to make you smile a tad. It was great fun to knit.

Continuing the Sarrazin (and Dishie) knitting marathon, I tried a picture dishcloth. There are a zillion of them on Rav, and this is one of Sarrazin’s free ones: Dragon.

dragon_clothDragon is a large dishcloth, at 45 stitches by 78 rows. I guess the dragon needed room to get that long tail and wing into the picture frame. That little blob near his mouth shows you he’s a fire-breathing dragon, not some dragon who should have covered his nose when he sneezed.

Here’s another excellent pattern from Sarrazin, her Twisted Tree Dishcloth:

green_cloth

It you’ve always wanted to knit a spectacular Tree of Life afghan, you could start with this pint-sized version and be done in an evening.