I can't seem to stop...

After discovering the moss-stitch granny square pattern for making dishcloths, I've been a bit obsessed with making them.

Last week, I admitted to my perfectionistic tendency of going to the effort to make the colors go round and round in an attractive order, instead of just letting the colors land (and worse, pool) where they may when using variegated or striped yarn.  Which meant a lot of snipping and magic-knotting to make that happen.  

Why, I asked myself, am I not diving into all my colorful scraps of cotton yarn for this?  

So, I did!  

And I fell even more in love with making these crazy cloths.

So much so, that for the last two weeks, I've completely abandoned any other creative endeavor.  

I don't imagine my readers will be as endlessly amused with these cloths as long as I may be amused making them, so this might (maybe...  I don't know...) be the last post where I show these.

Okay, maybe not...

Here, again, is the tutorial I used for the first one:

After making one (maybe two) cloths, the tutorial will be unnecessary.  In fact, the stitch marker suggested at the beginning is unnecessary in my opinion, but someone may find it helpful.  The only thing I think she doesn't address is the magic knot.  I just magic knot right at the spot where one round ends and the other begins.  Perfection isn't required here.

Here are two short videos demonstrating the magic knot:

The way I do it:

If you, say... like to wear a belt with your suspenders, you may be more comfortable with this way:

I have found that in picking out my color combinations, starting with a variegated yarn that has some white in it, works well.  I think the pops of white keeps these lighthearted.  Then just pull together five or so colors that play well with each other. Crochet them up in any order, or be very deliberate in your color placement.  It doesn't seem to matter.

I suppose it's possible that one day I'll make one that I dislike, but so far...  not a single one is a loser.

Last week, and this, I am sure is just the beginning:

These can be made any size. I happen to like my dishcloths on the small size (6 1/2 - 7 inches square) because they stretch out when wet (though these stretch much less than knitted cloths).  I'll come back and edit this if my preference changes after washing some of these several times.

Hopefully soon, I'll be showing other crafty things again, but I'm pretty sure these cloths will remain a relaxing fun project that continues in the background.  

Yep.  I could be at this for a while...

A fairly productive week...

Last week went fast!  Busy with productive things and socializing, but still plenty of time to craft. That's a pretty perfect week in my estimation.

The strawberry plants finally got uncovered, and the garlic I planted amongst the strawberries last fall appears to be thriving.  

I'm thinking some garlic cloves must have not sprouted, though, as I only have about 50 plants (between the strawberry bed and another small spot in which I planted about half as many as above).  For some reason, I thought I planted around 90 cloves.  Or maybe I'm dreaming that.  To be completely honest, I don't get great sleep, and I've been having a lot a weird dreams lately...

I've dreamt weirder things than planting 90 cloves of garlic, that's for sure!

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And look at what bloomed this weekend!

The amaryllis my neighbor gave me last Easter, I brought out of the garage into the sunroom in February to bring it out of dormancy.  It was so top-heavy, I scrambled to find something to hold it up before it toppled right over.

We crafty folks are resourceful.  

To the non yarn-crafty reading this, that is a 

knitting needle serving as a stake.

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A friend and I got together for a couple of hours one afternoon and mod-podged spring/Easter eggs - using flower designs cut from pretty tissue paper. 

It was messy, and I'm not sure I ever want to do it again, but  the finished eggs are kind of cute:

The eggs were inexpensive ones from Hobby Lobby, and are probably even more deeply discounted this week - in case anyone reading is inspired to do this. The eggs I bought are made of a ping-pong-ball material, packaged in a half-an-egg crate.  

If my friend wants to get together one more time to finish the job, I'll decorate the last three of my dozen...  Otherwise, those will be donated to a thrift shop and I'll be happy to call this done.  I've concluded I'm better at mod-podging flatter objects.

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At some point, these Tunisian-stitched hotpads were finished.  Made with a sturdy cotton yarn, they are a decent thickness for hotpads:

The one below (crocheted with a softer cotton yarn) is a little flimsier, so it will likely become a washcloth:

I like these a lot.  And they are not the least bit hard to make, but my arthritic thumbs grew pretty weary holding the long Tunisian hook in one hand, and the cloth in the other.  I think I'm done doing Tunisian crochet with cotton yarn.  

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And lastly, having recently enjoyed making some dishcloths using the moss stitch (aka linen stitch), I gave making moss stitch granny square cloths a go, and I am a little bit in love.  These fast projects made with colorful yarns are fun to make, and hopefully will be fun to use:

The orange one on the left was made with a sturdy kitchen cotton (like Sugar n' Cream or Peaches & Cream). The others are made using Hobby Lobby's I Love This Cotton Yarn in various prints.  This soft cotton yarn makes super drapey cloths, and the cotton "prints" work well in this stitch pattern.  

Though, the perfectionist in me did finagle a bit to get the colors to go 'round and 'round in a pleasing way, instead of congregating on one side, as they tend to do if you change directions each round.  Changing directions with each round keeps the squares from skewing.  To overcome the colors' tendency to pool when doing this, I did a lot of snipping and magic-knotting. In fact, I'm something of a pro at this now.  I've never before trusted the magic knot, but I figured dishcloths that will get abused and washed many times will be a great test of its reliability.

The video tutorial below is, by far, the best one I have found for making these:

I hope those of you who observe and celebrate have had a meaningful Lent and Easter!

In the pink...

Recently, I pulled out a bunch of pinkish fabric scraps to make some patchwork, and I was both tickled at what I came up with...

... and confused by how I managed to turn what was supposed to be one-inch squares into rectangles.  I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it took me quite a while to figure out what I had done.  But the important thing is that I did eventually figure it out, and (while I'll spare you the tedious explanation) in the end, I learned from the experience.  And was still able to create some cute stuffed hearts in spite of my absent-minded cutting and piecing:

And no one but me will ever notice that the corners don't match up, and I completely missed sewing one quilting line, right?  

Having seen some fun creations that use improv piecing, I think I need to give that a go. Precise measuring isn't required, but a good eye and understanding of how to piece this way is.  We'll see if I pursue that.  At the moment, I'm still in the enjoying-watching-others-do-it stage...

Then I turned my hand to making some Tunisian stitched potholders.  I got one done, but am still tackling the second one:

I made some years ago, but I had forgotten about the curling.  I had to steam it to get it to lay as nicely as it does above.  And I don't remember that this was hard on my thumbs years ago, but it is now.  Maybe I need to try tunisian crochet with something less stiff than cotton...

While giving my thumbs a rest, I crocheted a moss-stitched dishcloth.

A bit mishappen, but maybe that's user error.  I do like this change from knitting dishcloths, and this stitch produces a drapey cloth, much like knitting does.  

It's nice to have another pattern at the ready for when I need (or want) a mindless little project to work on. I followed this tutorial: 

Though, I think I might prefer this one:

I think I'm going to try making some other moss-stitch cloths - maybe one that looks granny square-ish next.