Washcloths and more washcloths

I know there are those out there who will loudly attest that they will never knit a washcloth, or dishcloth or whatever you want to call it cloth. I used to be one of them. I mean, why would I, who was not raised in the mid-west, want to do that? I found my answer...stitch patterns.

I like trying out new stitch patterns, and I hate swatching. So, what do you get when you mix some cotton yarn, a new stitch pattern and the desire to make something useful? A dishcloth. Now, I don't do dishes. I have a dishwasher (and a husband). But I do take showers (on a regular basis, even) and I do like me a washcloth. I've discovered that hand made washcloths are the best. And why wouldn't they be? Isn't hand-knit anything better than its machine made cousin?

I'll get back to the discloth thing in a minute.

One of the benefits of my media vacation is that all the creative juices started moving around again, after the mind-numbing winter in front of both TV and monitor. I was flipping through Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury of Knitting Patterns and read the introduction (for the first time). In it she says (and I'm paraphrasing here) that many people learn to form a knit stitch and a purl stitch and think they now know how to knit, when in fact, they've begun to learn to knit.

It got me thinking. I go to Friday Night Knitting at Beau Knits in Cohoes on a regular basis. There are a LOT of new knitters there, and I realized that there seem to be many who have looked at the The Husband's intrepid dive into knitting with awe and wonder. Yes, he's pretty intrepid, but come on guys....it's only knitting. It's only sticks and strings and lots of loops.

I went back to the book and started looking at all the stitch patterns that are simply combinations of knits and purls, no increases, no decreases, not a yarn over in sight. I thought, aha, there's a class here. So I pitched a class on Beyond the Basics to Barbara Hildreth, the proprietess of Beau Knits and so I will be teaching a 4 part series starting in mid-march. What will be making?

Dishcloths!

What have I been knitting in preparation for the class?

Dishcloths!!

Piccies will be shown when they're all done.

In the meantime....keep giving those sheep a reason to part with their wool.