Patterns, projects and techniques
Have you wanted to get in on the knitting craze? Or do you know a little bit about knitting, but not enough?
This terrific book is just what you need to get you started and help hone your skills. Enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when you make scarves, sweaters, hats, afghans and more in a variety of yarns and styles.
Simple learn-by-yourself lessons detail everything step by step, from getting the yarn onto the needle to finishing your project like a pro. Full-color, 64-page softcover book.
One great thing to knit when the weather is warm (or honestly any other time) is dishcloths and washcloths. They are fun and easy projects and a great way to play with new skills. Pretty washcloths make cleaning a tiny bit more fun, and they’re great to have on hand as a quick addition to a store-bought gift.
The Daisy Delight Dishcloth from Yarnspirations is a fun one for using leftover bits of green in your cotton yarn stash. What looks like the bottom in the picture is actually the left side as you knit it, and each little color section is worked with its own ball of yarn, intarsia style.
That’s a little fiddly for a washcloth, but the effect is cute, and it’s a simple way to learn the basics of intarsia knitting (as well as reading a chart) if you don’t already have those skills.
One the knitting is done, you add the flowers with a bit of lazy daisy embroidery, which is really easy to do even if you’re not that into embroidery. You could also potentially add flowers in duplicate stitch if you’d rather.
This may be the most work you’ve put into a dishcloth, but isn’t it adorable? It would be fun to use as a hand towel through the spring and summer, and if you already have some leftover green yarn from other projects it should be pretty easy to do.
You could also take this same concept and make it different colors. All dark green stems with stars on top might be reminiscent of Christmas trees, or brown with daisy stitch on top in different colors could be trees in the fall.
However you stitch it, this looks like a fun little project for knitters who are comfortable with intarsia and reading charts or who are ready to try those skills.
You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.
[Photo: Yarnspirations]
I am going to purchase this book because I have wanted to start knitting again after a 20 year hiatus. Thank you so much for your review.