Happy Halloween

Halloween was a big deal during my 1960’s childhood. The candy was a draw for sure. Getting dressed up in costumes and walking around at night was special. We didn’t wear our costumes around the house or at any time except Halloween. And we did not otherwise often walk the neighborhood at night. It was a safe neighborhood. It just wasn’t something we did. The rule was “be home when the street lights come on.”

This year Halloween on my blog is all dishcloths. In fact, they are all cloths by Amy Marie Vold, the talented mosaic stitch designer whose work I frequently knit. She calls this design Along Came a Spider.

I knit my spider set in Knitpicks Dishie. Dishie’s vibrant colors and not-too-rustic 100% cotton yarn both work well for mosaic work. “Creepy, crawly, creepy, crawly, creepy-creepy, crawly-crawly.” So say Bori the spiders.

This next creepy cloth is Clean to the Bone. I knit it in Paintbox Cotton Aran. Skull and crossbows dude is fine with a more rustic kitchen cotton. More down to earth.

I was raised on the East Side of Detroit. East Side kids came to your door on Halloween and yelled “Help the poor.” Just “Help the poor.” That’s what (and all) we yelled. I was an adult, and living on the West Side, before I heard kids yell the rest: “Help the poor, my pants are tore, gimme some money and I’ll buy s’more.” I was shocked to learn the rest of the chant. We kids on the East Side were in a hurry for the candy. Standing out in the cold shouting more than just a few words was so not going to happen.

And this last cloth? It’s Bone Dry Bar Mop knit in Paintbox Yarns Cotton DK. I knit almost all cloths in worsted weight kitchen cotton. But this larger pattern needs more “presentation” space. A DK weight works well too. It may even sop up a little better than worsted after a few washes because it seems to resist shrinkage a little better.

East Side kids also did not ever yell “trick or treat.” It has the benefit of being quick to say, like “help the poor.” But “trick or treat” was for the ill-mannered (just kidding) West Side kids. We Eastsiders presented as waifs not bullies.

Kittens galore

These little kittens are, well, the cat’s meow? No. I didn’t say that. (They are, though.) You’ve seen Sara Elizabeth Kellner’s freebie Tiny Window Cat once before on my blog. The first one was quite a hit with my little granddaughter. At her mom’s urging (“Did you want to ask grandma if she could knit something for you?”), Evelyn smiled so sweetly and asked if I could knit her kittycat a friend. Oh my. Is that like every crafting grandma’s daydream?

In case you’re thinking tiny might not mean particularly tiny, here’s original kitty cat’s new friends compared to a thimble.

Wild whiskers seemed in order. I have waxed thread in my thread stash and that worked out well.

The baskets are my addition to the pattern. Here’s how I knit them. Cast on 32 stitches, in the round. Knit 9 rounds. Purl 1 round. Knit 9 rounds. Bind off. Fold the basket on the purl ridge and sew the cast on and bound off edges together, wrong sides facing each other. Echoing the construction of the bottom of the cat, pick up 32 stitches along the bottom edge. Work rounds 1 through 5 of Kellner’s pattern for the bottom of the cat, except on rows 1, 3 and 5, work the decreases 8 times around to form the bottom of the basket. Draw together the remaining stitches and your basket is complete.

While on a cat theme. This litter of kitten dishcloths makes a sweet gift for the cat lover in your circle. These are Amy Marie Vold’s PurrPetual Domestic Supervisors cloths. One pattern provides a knitter with four ways to knit the cat.

Mine are knit in Paintbox Yarns Cotton Aran. This set of four used 50 grams of yellow and 50 grams of blue, 30 grams of white, and 14 grams of green. If you haven’t yet tried mosaic (a/k/a slip stitch) knitting, it’s an easy colorwork technique, well-explained in the pattern. You use only one color at a time. Easy peasy and great fun.

Botanical dishcloths

This is not a gold Christmas tree. I mean, it could be a gold Christmas tree but this is mid-April, and even though it’s been below freezing at night, this is actually and merely a gold fir tree. It’s Amy Marie Vold’s Fir Sprucing Up cloth. I knit mine in Paintbox Yarn’s Cotton Aran. 18 grams of the main color and 16 of the contrast is all the yarn you need.

Here’s another version, knit in the same yarn. This time it’s a fir tree standing in the sunshine.  Ok. I guess it has some snow on its branches.

Sticking to a botanical theme, here’s Vold’s Sunflower at the Sink. Again, this is knit in Paintbox Cotton Aran. What tickles me most about this cloth is that the sunflower’s petals are irregular. Too many knitted sunflowers suffer from perfectly-uniform-petal syndrome.

In the real world sunflowers are messy whirls of yellow petals. In the real world sunflowers are wild things. Comparing one to another is a bit like comparing snowflake shapes. This is easily seen in Steve’s 2009 photo of a field of sunflowers near us.

Vold’s design captures another feature sometimes missed: the seed pod in the middle is huge and dwarfs the petals. This cloth is such a fun knit. Consider giving it try.

Next up is another design of Vold’s: Sunny Dish Position. This time I knit the pair in Drops Paris, another workhorse “kitchen” cotton:

The pattern is designed for DK weight. But Aran weight and US size 6 needles worked great.

If you haven’t yet dipped your knitting toes into mosaic a/k/a slip stitch knitting, trying out the easy colorwork technique with a dishcloth pattern should tempt. Vold’s patterns are presented both charted and line-by-line. Her patterns are tested. And they are clear. You alternate two rows in one color yarn and two rows in the other color, being sure that your yarn is on the non-public side of the work when you slip stitches. That’s about all there is to remember. Easy peasy.