Project Notebook: The Cursed Ball of Yarn

As most knitters do, I have quite a stash, and some of it is pretty old. In the fall, I decided I wanted to knit some gloves for the girl (since her hands are finally big enough that I felt like I could stitch individual fingers without going insane) and I let her pick out the yarn.

She picked a ball of Opal Harry Potter (Ron colorway), which has been long since discontinued. Maybe there’s a reason for that, because this yarn has been nothing but bad luck for me.

The yarn itself is lovely, and I whipped up a pair of kid-sized gloves in no time.

And that’s when it all started to go wrong.

The first day she wore them to school she lost one.

So I knit another one.

I was sure we’d lost another one last week, right before our first snow, but I found it, thank goodness.

A while later I decided she needed some new knit socks, because her ones from last year are getting a little small. And I thought it would be cute to use the Harry Potter yarn again.

And though I measured and calculated and did all the things you’re supposed to do, she could not get the first sock on her foot.

The second one I think would fit, but the foot is too short.

So I’m still going to end up knitting three socks, just as I knit three gloves.

There’s some kind of dark magic here, no doubt.

Sigh. At least she probably won’t lose a sock. Maybe.

Have you had any exciting knitting adventures lately? I’d love to hear!

Next Pattern:

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]

Book Review – Dishcloths for Special Days [Knitting]

Book Review – Holiday Knit Dishcloths

Next Pattern:

Have you read?