There are things you just shouldn’t do

And one of them, believe it or not, is knit every waking moment. Oh, sure, you can knit while riding in the car (back of a bike is difficult, especially if you drop your yarn… don’t ask me how I know), you can knit during meetings, lunch hours, or odd bits here and there. You really shouldn’t knit while driving. I’ve been guilty of this, on a really nice day, on a back road, going slowly, and knitting stockinette stitch. Scuba diving and knitting aren’t really compatible. But you know what else?

Knitting while exercising is totally doable! Unless you happen to be totally uncoordinated like I am, and keep falling off of the treadmill and eliptical. It’s just such a waste of time, walking or elipticalling, thinking about everything you could be doing, so I tried it. Not so good, but I’m getting the hang of it. Keeping it simple, it’s just a scarf for my granddaughter, but I fear the exercising part of it is falling by the wayside. Especially when I have to keep stopping to pick up my yarn. I’ll get there, took me awhile to get to where I could knit and walk at the same time too. And, yes, I do have one of those awesome Port-a-Pocket pouches, that helps.

And Podcasts! Who thought up that little time waster? My palm/phone/camera/portable brain has a large sd card and while it’s not an ipod, I can download podcasts and listen to them while I’m doing just about anything (again, the port-a-pocket pouch is great!). So now we have 3 things we’re doing. Elipticalling, knitting and listening to podcasts!

Check out podcasts, you can download and listen to them right on your computer. I’m not going to recommend any in particular, they’re all great, and most of these folks are just plain zany. Go to itunes and search for knitting podcasts. You’ll be hooked! Or needled. Or whatever!

So where do you knit? And what is the craziest thing you’ve ever been doing while knitting? Keep it clean folks.

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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