Pin 34

Original pin:


http://lostinstash.blogspot.com/

I had pinned this to my "crochet, you say?" board because the pinner before me had qualified it as a crochet pattern. One of my friends pointed out to me that this was a knit pattern rather than crochet but I never got around to moving it to the "knitty witty" board.

Anyway, it is actually a link to a link to a ravelry.com pattern, that is in fact knit and, thankfully, qualified as easy. I am a self-taught knitter
and have been doing it off and on for about three years but I would in no way call myself a qualified, skilled, or competent knitter. But this one is easy, right?

I was also totally inspired by the beautiful colors!

Well here is my pretty stack of washcloths:

Look nice all folded up?? Ok just don't unfold them. I am going to clean up my inner thoughts here and spare you all the obscenities that have been filtering through my head for this project. I can not make these suckers square for the life of me. I didn't start out this project intending to make four, going on five, but my inability to create this square has me totally obsessed with it right now. It has become a personal mission. I have tried adjusting my tension, tighter here, looser there, but the darn things come out kite-shaped every time!  And the real kicker is that it will look perfect--absolutely perfect. . . until there is about four or three rows to go and it is then that it starts to look wonky. I made three of these in two days and my fingers started to go numb.

These are in order of creation (L to R, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th)
Somehow the second one looks best.

Another side by side comparison shot

What am I doing wrong??? It seems simple, adding a stitch every row and then when you get to a certain number, decreasing a stitch every row. No fancy stitches, no complex counting. I can't figure this out!!! I even followed the directions and bought the recommended brand of yarn and a new set of knitting needles of their recommended gauge. I was secretly hoping that I would be able to give these as a wedding shower gift, but so far there is no way I am gifting these. I would be embarassed for someone to take them!

So, the obsession continues until I create a real square or I run out of yarn. Whichever comes first.

Total cost: $11 for enough yarn for 9 cloths and new needles.

Total time: Infinite. But so far, approximately 2 hours per cloth, if there are no tear outs along the way