Summer Lovin'

Kitchen towels were ironed prior to photo session. Which I can pretty much guarantee will never happen again.

So what do you knit when you're in the land of Nyquilia and bored out of your freakin' mind? Why, kitchen towels of course! Figured these would be hard to eff up, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter. Cheapass cotton and all.

But I'm happy to say they came out fine! I wanted to go with a summery-type theme, given my descent into the colds of hell at the time. Hence, a trio of balmy images designed to bring forth thoughts of beachy vacas and ocean breezes. You know, before I wipe my hands all over them.

I use these as kitchen towels instead of dishcloths, and they seriously cut down on the paper towel usage. Much as I like the Knitter Picker-Upper I made last year (and use, the thing's quite raggedy now), the texture of the ballband stitch pattern is a little rough. These new ones are already a big improvement. Nice and soft when drying off the hands (their primary usage)!

First one up was the last one finished, pulled out of my ass and everything:

Saiiiiilin, sailin' away, blah blah blah soft rocky crap blah blah blah...

I found a chart for the sailboat online, made a couple of very minor adjustments to the sail (threw in an extra stitch here or there, can't remember exactly), and added a little ocean-y wave underneath. Surrounded it all with some seed stitch, finished 'er off with a little i-cord loop-di-do, and voila! The Catamaran Kitchen Towel is born!

Whenever we go on an island vaca, we do a day trip on a catamaran and oh, it is so much freakin' fun. So this one, while the shortest of the three ( I was pretty much knitting on yardage fumes at that point), is also my favorite.

Catamaran Kitchen Towel
Pattern: My own, with help from this chart
Yarn: Lily Sugar'n'Cream Super Size in yellow
Needle: Addi Turbo size 7, 16"


And now, form of, a Palm Tree!

Put the lime in the coconut...or whatever the lyrics to that song are.

This one came in mid-height of the three. I had to ditch one of the final seed stitch rows and still had barely inch of yarn left after the bindoff - which explains the ever-so-slightly uneven top and bottom borders, and the multi-colored i-cord loop.

This was a fun little pattern to knit, although I had to keep folding the page down to stay on track. Rows and rows of text are not conducive to Nyquil knitting. I also cut out some of the stockinette rows above and below the tree due to the aforementioned lack of yardage. I might make the tree bigger next time, but overall, I dig how this came out!

Palm Tree Kitchen Towel
Pattern: Palm Tree Dishcloth
Yarn: Lily Sugar'n'Cream in Orange
Needle: Addi Turbo size 7, 16"


Last and um, yeah, kinda least:

I think I'll go for a walk outside now...and not take this with me.

This one I'm rather meh about. You can barely make out that it's the sun (Hubster had to peer at it from several angles, then guessed star), and I'm not too crazy about the wide-top-and-bottom/skimpy-sides look, either. But hey, it's a kitchen towel and not worth getting your panties in a bunch over. Unless you're into that sort of thing. Sinner.

I subbed seed stitch for the pattern's garter and, you guessed it, added the i-cord loop for easy hanging.

Sunny Kitchen Towel
Pattern: Sunny Days Dishcloth
Yarn: Lily Sugar'n'Cream Super Size in Yellow
Needle: Addi Turbo size 7, 16"