NYD '05 pattern has been rewritten, plus more

Recently, while knitting up a particular pink baby sweater, I thought that this was nuts. There was so much purling on the sweater that it actually hurt my wrists and I don't want to knit the pattern ever again. Now, it's not that I disliked the sweater, but rather the manner in which the pattern was written. However, the daughter who was going to gift it and the new mommy who the sweater was given to, really like it. So the chances of me knitting it in the future, are still there. The more I thought about it, the more I got to thinking that it could have been written better. Much better. Rather than a ton of purling rows, it should have been flipped over with knitting the rows and purling only the one row of the pattern to give it it's shape/texture. Had it been written that way, my wrists would have been spared the twisting that I must be doing while knitting those directions. Something to be thought about down the road and I tucked that idea back into my brain to find later on.

Shortly there after, I went to knit up one of my old 'standby' dishcloths'. My NYD '05 Dishcloth. Mmmmm, my wrist started to 'feel' the pattern. And the lightening bolt hit. I had written the pattern with the same issues I found in the pink sweater. More twisting and purling in the pattern than it needed to be. Looking at the pattern itself, it dawned on me that there was no reason to re-write the pattern and keep the stress off of my wrists. As someone who has been knitting since I was 7 years old, knitting is a big part of my life, and I don't want to do ANYTHING to interfere with my knitting lifestyle. (Which leads me to ask you, how many of you are taking breaks every 15 minutes and stretching your hands, arms and shoulders? hmmm...) So, I challenge you to look at the 4 dishcloths here. Which ONE is from the old pattern, and which THREE are the newly written one? Can you tell the difference from the textures? Click on them and make 'em big, and see if you can tell which is which. Which one is the old pattern?

Is it the Red one?

Is it the Blue one?

Is it the White one?

Or is it the Americana one?

I'm not going to tell you which one it is. I'll let you decide. I MAY tell you down the road, as soon as you have time to look them over.

But I will post the pattern for the newly written dishcloth ( NYD '05, Ver.2 Dishcloth ) in a few moments for you to use. AND then, I knit up and wrote out the pattern for NYD '05 Kitchen Hanging Hand Towel, too. I've been meaning to do that ever since I started knitting towels to go with the dishcloths. Now, I'm glad I waited this long. I wrote it with the new wrist friendly directions.

Doesn't this look like a great Red, White, and Blue set? Don't forget your Tribbles! I can't wait to knit up some more of these for some gifting moments. That will have to wait a little bit, since I've been working on catching up with some finishing of projects that are hollering for some attention. I don't know if it's from Reading Major Knitter's [ http://majorknitter.typepad.com/ ] Finish or Frog it Fridays, or knowing that I was going home in a couple of weeks and want to bring my Mom her hat and vest I've had on the needles for far too long! Both avenues have been yelling quite loudly these days.

I finished this off on Sunday afternoon but it's not blocked yet. It needs to be washed and put over a plate to dry. Now I ask you, how easy is that?

Here's the flip side. Again, pre-blocking of the hat. It's the Tam hat from the book, Hat's On! I've made it for Mom in the past and she loves the hat. This is really close to the other one that I'd done in the Peacock color, but this time made it in Too Teal, both from Paton's Classic Wool. The Too Teal is the same wool I made her cabled sweater for her birthday last November. The difference between the colors is just enough to make the two clash (in my opinion). This is from the multiple skeins I have left when I'd found the color had been discontinued at an AC Moore store. Knowing it was Mom's favorite color I grabbed all they had figuring after a sweater I'd find something to use it for.

I picked up 22 skeins initially.

I have 13 left. Give or take. hm... Now what?

Since I now have 3 more of these to finish before August, I'm trying to get at least one of these done before flying home. Just in case my daughter can come at the same time for a visit I'd like to let her carry it back to New York rather than shipping it. Less mailing money = more yarn money. Right?

I still want to finish off Mom's vest, too. But I'm going to post this right now so I can give you the two new patterns in separate postings so you can print them without the whole long stories that I've been known to post in the past. I'm trying to save on trees. Ya..my story!