Dishcloth critters

OwlPair

This is “Who Owl Help Cook & Clean,” another slip stitch dishcloth pattern by Amy Marie Vold (CornucopiAmy on Ravelry). I knit this pair in Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream.

What a hoot!  Here’s a closer look.

2ndOwl

Amy’s mosaic cloths are such fun to knit that I find I can rarely knit just one. And I do much enjoy doing them in pairs, switching the colors.

newowl

“Frog Prince of the Pad” is another of Amy’s patterns. And again I used Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream.

frogprince2

These make excellent dishcloths. A number of little ones in my vicinity like to use them at bathtime too. I didn’t quite have enough yarn for a second one, since I’d started with less than full skeins. So this Frog Prince is knit in Knit Picks Dishie. Dishie makes for a slightly more refined look. Well, if a dishcloth frog can ever be even slightly refined.

frog

My cloths have been hooting, ribbiting, and now comes the purring. This is a pair of “PurrPETual Domestic Supervisors,” another of Amy’s patterns.

kitty3

These lovelies are knit in Knit Picks Dishie.

kitty2

kitty1

Why dishcloths? What ever possesses a knitter to knit dishcloths? This subject has come up before on my blog. They are quick knits. They are useful. My family likes to accept them from me. And combine all that with these clever slip stitch/mosaic patterns…at times I simply get addicted to them.

Good thing that the knitting universe is big enough to accept all manner of knits and all kinds of knitters.

Amy Marie’s not dishcloths

Eiffel2

This is Eiffel Towel (pun intended). It’s one of Amy Marie’s (CornucopiAmy on Ravelry) newer patterns. It’s 11 inches by 19 inches and I am using it as the kitchen towel it is. I knit mine in Knit Picks Dishie. One and one-quarter balls of the main color (Swan) and three-quarters of a ball of the green (Kenai). I’ve never been to Paris, but I definitely enjoyed knitting the City’s iconic tower as a towel.

I could have blocked this straight, but decided not to bother. It’s a towel, after all. And it’s not really curling at the top. Eiffel Towel was long enough that I couldn’t photograph it in my small studio without it overlapping the place where the background bends upward.

Next is Amy Marie’s newest mosaic-knit design: Celebration Cake Trivet. This one is my Red Velvet version, again in Dishie.

red_cake_trivet

It’s just about 11 inches square and will look great under whatever cake I’m celebrating with. Some Ravelers decided to knit the flames in yellow or gold, but I stayed with the bare bones version.

And I so enjoyed the experience of knitting it that I decided to knit a dark chocolate version too.

chocolate_cake_trivet2

Dishie, and most of the major kitchen cottons, come in such a variety of colors that it’s tempting to knit up as many trivets as the kinds of cakes you bake. Let’s see, it’s actually very rare that I’d bake a cake. So, it’s tempting to knit up as many trivets as the kinds of cakes I’d buy.

For now, I’m well-satisfied with these two.

brown_cakepair

Sticking to the non-dishcloth kitchen cotton theme, these are Amy Marie’s Some Bunny’s Bib.

white_bunnybib

green_bunnybib

So sweet. And they are very serviceable items for the ever-messy babes in your neck of the woods. These are generously sized, about 9.5 inches wide and 8 inches to the neck bind off.

Two balls of Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream worked up both these bibs, with about half an ounce of each color left.

bunnybibs

Amy Marie invigorates the humble dishcloth

piggy2

This is Pig Pen’s Kitchen and Spa Cloth, by Amy Marie of Minnesota (CornucopiAmy on Ravelry). What fun! Garter stitch mosaic a/k/a slip stitch technique. Change color every two rows. The pattern is formed entirely of slipped stitches–no stranding required.

Amy Marie holds a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry and has researched gallium arsenide semiconductor devices. I had no idea what that is so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Gallium arsenide. It’s a compound of gallium and arsenide. Hmm. It’s often used as a substrate material for the epitaxial growth of other III-V semiconductors. Oh. Well. Enough of that. It must have something to do with seeing stuff that isn’t really there because that’s a bit like planning out mosaic stitch motifs.

Here’s me playing a bit and adding some sky to my piggy’s world.

pig2

What a hoot! Is that a good transition?

owl_yellow2

This is Amy Marie’s Who Owl Help Cook and Clean dishcloth pattern. I made one, in the same lowly Lily Sugar ‘n Cream that most knitters seem to use for dishcloths. Then, I quickly had to make another. It was that much fun!

owl_blue

There is really only one thing to remember in garter stitch mosaic. On the public side, you just slip the stiches. Two things–it’s best to slip the stitches purl wise, to avoid twisting them. Oh, three things. On the non-public side, when you come to a stitch that you slipped on the public side, you need to move the yarn to the front of your work (as it faces you), so that your teeny strands between stitches will all collect on the non-public side. It’s totally easy. After the first few rows under your belt the knitting flows easily. It’s a lot of fun to see the pattern emerge.

Amy Marie makes it easy because every one of these patterns is completely error free. And the directions are both charted and line-by-line. So, knitters’ choice on which suits you best.

This next one, Lattice have Pie is a towel rather than a dishcloth. I will probably use mine as a hot pad. I gave this first one to a gifted hostess and it looked sweet among the yummy offerings on her brunch table. I decided to use a more refined cotton: Premier Yarn’s Isaac Mizrahi Craft Brookyn Solids.

pie

The pattern motifs can be knit in any order you like. Heck, once you’re on a roll, you could knit a table runner of these if you wanted to. My gauge was off because this yarn isn’t as beefy as Sugar ‘n Cream and my towel turned out to be 11 inches by 17 inches.

For the first time I tried the so-called “Chinese Waitress Cast-on.” I used it for my Lattice Have Pies and the piggy cloths. This cast-on seems to have first been featured in “211 Ways to Begin and End Your Knitting,” written by Cap Sease and released in 2014. The story goes that she learned it from a friend who learned it from a Chinese waitress in Beijing. You can see the cast-on more clearly in the version of Lattice Have Pie that I knit in Sugar ‘n Cream.

pie2It is a short-tail cast-on that creates a knitted-on row with a uniform row of nicely behaved stitches. Compare the piggy cloth with the owl cloth (which I knitted with a long-tail cast-on) to see the difference. I’d like to find a Chinese Waitress Cast-off so that the beginning and end of the cloth would match more closely, but that’s so obsessive of me I can barely stand myself for mentioning it. It’s a cool cast-on to add to your repertoire.

Here’s another look at my full moon/no moon set of owls.

owl_cloths