Ravelympics: The Final Day

Ah, the last day of the Ravelympics. I can't believe how quickly it's gone by! Inspired by CheaPet's lovely dishcloths on her blog (hookandwool.blogspot.com), I decided to do a couple dishcloths for my final entry. I wanted something with an easily-memorized pattern so that I could take the project with me without dragging a big ol' book along, and while in the shower came up with these two illusion-knit patterns. They are amazingly easy--if you can knit and purl, you can make these. I'll write out the instructions at the bottom of this post. In theory I *could* squeeze in one more quick-and-easy project, but I'm content with the six & think I will work on McGonagall today. I really do want to get her finished up.

We had a very nice visit with Dad yesterday. Took a leisurely tour of the four models at our Stanton community, and I'm surprised at how different our three tastes are. Ralph likes a kitchen that is open to the living room, whereas I prefer at least a short wall separating the two rooms so if I'm making dinner for company, they aren't staring at the dirty pots & pans. Dad likes a large living room & smaller master bedroom; Ralph wants a big master bedroom. I hate having the master walk-in closet being in the bathroom; neither Dad nor Ralph minded it at all.

We lucked out on the weather, too. It rained pretty hard off & on all day, but never when we were actually outside. We'd go into a model, look out the window & see pouring rain, then when we were ready to go to the next one, the weather was clear again. It wasn't too cold, either; a bit chilly, yes, although definitely tolerable without a coat.

For lunch we went to Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner restaurant & we all ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and creamy chicken noodle soup. Ralph had boysenberry pie as his first course & Dad took a slice home. I skipped pie since we all had big chocolate cupcakes from the model tour. The meals were big enough for us to take home leftovers for dinner.



So back to the dishcloths. You may be wondering how illusion knitting works. The principle is really quite simple. The patterns are a combination of stockinette & garter stitch. The stockinette lies flat whereas the garter is raised. When you look at the piece from an angle, the garter blocks your view of the stockinette and the pattern is visible. All odd-numbered rows are plain knit stitches, the even-numbered are a combination of knit & purl to give you the garter sections. Whatever you do on the even-numbered rows for color A, you do the opposite for color B. So if color A is knit 4, purl 7, knit 12 you would purl 4, knit 7, purl 12 on color B. And that's all there is to it.

OK, on to the patterns. You'll need worsted weight yarn in two contrasting colors & appropriately-sized needles. I used Plymouth Encore Worsted with US7 needles. You can make these larger or smaller by changing the width of the stripes & casting on appropriately. The vertical stripes are 8 stitches across, the diagonal ones are 4.

VERTICAL STRIPES DISHCLOTH (approx 6-3/4" square)
Color A: Forest green
Color B: Sand

Using Color B, cast on 32 stitches.
Row 1, Color A: Knit
Row 2, Color A: (K8, P8) twice
Row 3, Color B: Knit
Row 4, Color B: (P8, K8) twice

Repeat rows 1-4 until dishcloth is roughly square, ending with a Row 2. Bind off in Color B. Block if desired.

DIAGONAL STRIPES DISHCLOTH (approx. 7-1/4" square; this pattern is easier than it looks in the instructions--trust me on this one. Basically you are moving the stripes over by one stitch every time you switch back to Color A.)
Color A: Sand
Color B: Deep mauve

Using Color B, cast on 36 stitches.
Row 1, Color A: Knit
Row 2, Color A: K4, (P4, K4) to end
Row 3, Color B: Knit
Row 4, Color B: P4, (K4, P4) to end
Row 5, Color A: Knit
Row 6, Color A: P1, (K4, P4) to last 3 stitches, K3
Row 7, Color B: Knit
Row 8, Color B: K1, (P4, K4) to last 3 stitches, P3
(OK, I think you know to alternate colors & knit the odd rows at this point, so I'm going to skip them)
Row 10, Color A: P2, (K4, P4) to last 2 stitches, K2
Row 12, Color B: K2, (P4, K4) to last 2 stitches, P2
Row 14, Color A: P3, (K4, P4) to last stitch, K1
Row 16, Color B: K3, (P4, K4) to last stitch, K1
Row 18, Color A: As row 4
Row 20, Color B: As row 2
Row 22, Color A: As row 8
Row 24, Color B: As row 6
Row 26, Color A: As row 12
Row 28, Color B: As row 10
Row 30, Color A: As row 16
Row 32, Color B: As row 14

Repeat rows 1-32 until roughly square, ending with an even-numbered row in Color A. Bind off in Color B. Block if desired.