I decided to tidy my studio Sunday afternoon and found some forgotten treasures for my effort. This little plaque finally made it onto the wall.


One box held a carefully collected pile along with a few apron ideas. I think it might be leftover from the swap I did last year. Perhaps I can finish it.


My owls were still hanging out along with a few more waiting to be finished. I have some more fabrics that would be great as owls. I'll have to finish them up and hang them in the house this fall.

That red underneath is silk from China. Carefully brought back for me by Katy, it is an authentic Chinese wedding red (though, she said, the pattern is not traditional). It needs to be part of something special but I can never quite decide what; maybe special pouches for my wedding jewellery.


A package sent to me by my grandmother when I was getting all my things together for our wedding a couple of years ago. The bag (age unknown) contains remnants from my mother's and my grandmother's wedding gowns that I worked into my wedding outfit.


Moda charm packs. Working out to roughly 115 squares (if the little ones are pieces together) all I need to get is some sashing to make a vintagey charm quilt. I think a white or a cream would be nice.


And this bag of scraps. This came from Erin and I've been trying to decide for a while what to do with it. Lots of the pieces are pretty small but there are some really cool things in there: marbles, apples, monkeys, frogs, flowers, butterflies ...


I decided to start piecing things together and see where I end up.

Pattern: Classic Washcloth from A Knitter's Book of Yarn
Yarn: Knit Picks Crayon in 8051 (blue) and 8054 (green)
Size: 12.5" x 12.5" (32 cm x 32 cm) before washing
Yardage: about 90% of the blue ball and 10% of the green ball (meaning I can make another one with the colours the other way around)
Needles: 3.25 mm bamboo


This is the first project in ages I've done on straight needles - they feel so much more traditional - it was nice. the project itself is very nice too; a simple, mostly garter square with just enough variation in colour and pattern to make it interesting at the beginning and the end. I'd finished the first border the day I cast -on and then mosied my way through the middle section whenever I had some spare knitting time (Rob's sweater is still very close to being finished but since the weather has gotten so hot I've let it sit on the back burner).

I got to the end of the centre section at knit night on Thursday (for anyone in town there is a new knitting group meeting after work in Javaroma every Thursday - more info in the "Knorth of 60 Knitters" group on Ravelry). The pattern calls for you to knit the centre section for 6" but I think this is a mistake because the final measurements given are 12" by 12" and there is no way 6" + 2.5" (24 rows of border at gauge) = 12". I worked the centre until the length of my knitting was equal to the width less the height of the border and I ended up with a square washcloth.

I shoved the ball of green into my purse Friday morning and was glad I did. Our power went out at 4:30 - late enough that there was no point for anyone to hang around in my office and we all left half an hour early. I ended up hanging around at Rob's office instead because he needed to make sure the server started properly after the power came back. I attached my green yarn, knit the stockinette border, switched back to blue and was just finishing up the sixth row of garter when the lights came back on. Once the server was going we left and I got most the way through casting off while we were walking around the video store trying to pick something to watch (Coraline). I wove in ends when we got home and it was finished.

And it's so soft!

Its still got a trip through the laundry to do before it is officially done but I'm not going to wait for that to use it. In this hot weather one of the nicest things in the afternoon, when the office is muggy, is to wash my face. It gets rid of that greasy, sticky feeling and makes me feel refreshed and ready for a few more hours of sitting at my desk trying to concentrate through the heat. I don't like the feel of paper towels on my face though and that's all we've got at work. I read about hankachi on Goodness a little while ago and realized they were exactly what I needed. I think this washcloth might be my first hankachi.

When Samera showed up at my tea party last month (a wonderful surprise as I thought she was 1800 km away) the first thing she did was present me with goodies. There was some giant rick-rack - for purposes yet to be determined - and some delicate lace - perfect for a project I was thinking of - and a piece of mint.

Being me, I can remember Samera telling me what kind of mint it was but, though I can hear her voice and picture the way she looked as she spoke, I can't remember what it's called. She has some orange mint drying on her blog right now and since I know this sprig of mint was a cutting from one of her plants I will assume it is orange mint until someone corrects me. It smells delicious anyway.

Samera said if I put it in some water it would root and it spent three weeks living happily in a shot glass on our kitchen table. Everytime I watered it (or put it back because it had fallen out) I would see a little more development around the bottom of the sprig. It was a magical process. Last night I decided that it was probably time for a little soil and dug around my gardening supplies until I found a good pot.


My mint is now sitting prettily in its pot on the table and I am thinking of things I can do with it once it's big enough to harvest (or share).