MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

January is a time of year when the cold and dark days make me feel just plain miserable. Miss knitting on the back porch or poolside. Instead I weigh myself down with blankets to keep warm, when I could be knitting one! Hey, that's an idea!

Boredom was beginning to set in after all that pre-Christmas mayhem. As a lark I entered the contest sponsored by this blog and Maggie Sefton, a terrific writer of knitting based murder mysteries. I submitted some titles for possible book titles.

AND I'M ONE OF THE FIRST PLACE WINNERS!

I was flabbergasted. Unfortunately I can't reveal what my winning title was because apparently, good title stealing is quite the treachery in the writing world! I'll be receiving as my prize a set of autographed books from the author's Kelly Flynn series. Í enjoyed "Knit One, Kill Two", so I'm looking forward to reading more of her novels. What a really nice surprise!

Meanwhile, after completing my big Wallaby sweater project for Shaun's gift I was desperate for a little, mindless project.

One that would fulfill my need to exercise some thrift and at the same time make use of the many clutterballs of cotton yarn I've accumulated. Not to mention it's been a while since I've knitted a Ballband Dishcloth!

Well, it never hurts to throw in a Grandma's Favorite Dishcloth for good measure now, does it?

A nice beginning to reducing the surplus of dishcloth cotton! I've also been paying more attention to how I wet block the cloths to give them a nicer finish. If you spritz the top and bottoms really well and push and pull with your fingers a bit you can get a nice "pie crimping"to those frequently overlooked edges.

I'm making a slow but steady progress with my Paintbox Afghan. Only 14 more Log Cabin Rectangles to go! Not big enough to cover up with yet. All the blocks are joined by knitting them together with a black yarn. I'm keeping a list of the Noro Kureyon colors I've used so I don't repeat any colors. It has been a nice little take along project so far. Not too big or complex to work on at basketball games or while waiting for our appetizers to arrive.

Doesn't everyone knit while they're waiting in a restaurant?

I happen to think pure bliss is a a good log cabin/ ball band/toe up sock and a three olive dirty martini!

I've also been trying to set aside more time to actually complete some charity knitting for our Church Knitting Ministry. I wasn't sure how much yardage I had to work with so I knit both adult and baby beanies from the top down. Some excellent links for this method are here and here.

Have a good week knitting and using up all your yarn clutterballs!