About the Cotton....

When one buys 15 lbs of cotton, one is rather obliged to start knitting up cotton. Fortunately, AudioGirl piped right up and requested a new bathmat. I agreed, but she had to fork over the size 11 circulars. My KnitPicks Harmony Interchange-ables are in a project and I was not digging them out.

Size 11 needles, 55 stitches, two colors of cotton, and miles of garter stitch. It's heavy and unwieldy but between Castle, the laundromat, some time watching knitting vlogs and a couple of episodes of Numb3rs and I finished it Monday night. It's about 27" wide and 36" long. I had about 3 yards of yellow left over (not enough for another row) and about 17 yards of blue. Not bad for a week's work. The cones are supposed to have 394 yards per--so 780 yards in a week and that's certainly not all the knitting that I did.

Of course, one must include the cat for scale. Please note that while she was wearing a harness for this photo opportunity she was not happy about it. My backyard is not secure though and my next door neighbors have two very big dogs (and a new puppy!) who think Gypsy looks like a delightful snack.

I'd forgotten how much cotton chews up my hands.  I've been powering through it though and dang if large needles and bulky weight doesn't knit up quickly!! I am a huge fan of things this, especially considering that we're now into MAY and I'm trying to figure out how it is that I'll get through another 17,500 meters of yarn before the end of the year to finish my 20K stash down.This finally pushed me over the 2500 meters. If I make a couple more, that will certainly make a dent but doesn't really reduce the stash since this is all new yarn this year.

*sigh*

(Also...fess up, how many of YOU ended up buying cotton?)

I'm not only working on that though. I broke out a crochet hook to see if I could remember how to whip up a grocery bag. I made an excessive amount of these the last time I bought too much cotton. But I'm in a new city and have different friends who might also need to be assaulted with cotton bags.


Verdict? Well, I remember how to do it but I was having a miserable time with it. It may just have been the hook I was using but I kept splitting the yarn, dropping the stitches. I suffered through one bag. I may try again with a different hook, smaller hook? It was frustrating enough that I'm not charging back into it for the moment.

And --as you can see peeking into the picture above and now here, I'm working on some washcloths. These are being whipped through on size 10 needles (6 mm) and are at 30 stitches. I'm doing a few rows of garter, then three stitches of garter on either side as a border and stockinette in the middle. Very TV knitting.  I'm hoping one of my friends will pop up at the end of this post and say that they have an electric pink, black and white bathroom and are in dire need of washcloths. Otherwise these are going in a gift tub to be inflicted on unsuspecting recipients at a future date. So far, I have three washcloths.