Rain, Rain, Go Away

Or stay. I don't care, cuz my house is on a hill, and I have lots of stash to dive into....

More diversions from my doily finale: home-made handtowels for the bathroom. I have a huge stash of leftover dishcloth cotton from my giant ripple bedspread, and I have been paring it down with new washcloths in the stitchpattern from last post. Then I realized, I have more washcloths than I need at this point! I am starting to run low on handtowels, though....


so Aim's Handtowel was born!

The pattern: chain 41, sc in 2nd chain and follow the stitchpattern across. When you come to the end chain, sc in it and turn your work so you can work the same stitches across the other side of the chains, as if you were going to work in the round for an oblong shape!

That gives a nice scalloped starting end. Unlike the washcloths, this will have straight edges, with scallops only on the 2 ends.

At the end of that row, start to work back and forth like usual for the washcloths, (i.e. NOT working in the round anymore) My finished towel has a total of 32 rows of scallops, giving a 19.5 inch x 12 inch towel. It used up 2 skeins exactly of Sugar 'N Cream washcloth cotton, with a size G crochet hook.

Important: remember to chain 3 at the beginning of each row, and do it very loosely so that the sides of the towel will not pucker!



Another washcloth, the last one prior to the towels:


So, though I may be temporarily finished making washcloths, I now turn my attention to handtowels. I hate buying things that I can make! Especially such thick and luxurious towels from my stash yarn, in happy vintage colors! There are several other towel patterns I'm going to try...

"Shopping in my basement" is the theme this year! Stitches is next weekend, a mere stone's throw from my home, but I am not going to go. I'd love to, but stashbuilding is all that will happen, and it's not in the budget. Similarly, this year I missed my fav Fiber Fest, which I have attended since the beginning. I'm cracking down on the spending. And, it feels good!

Happy stitching!

(p.s. that first pic is a gnome-butt fungus on the forest floor last spring! Peek-a-boo!)