Takin' on the Role of Nanny

Yep, it hit me yesterday - if my mom isn't making those awesome round dishcloths anymore, somebody has to pick up the ball and run with it. That's right. I haven't knit anything in well over a decade (closer to two) but I picked up the needles today. Actually, I bought a new pair and some cotton yarn and *gulp* started knitting.

I was pretty proud of myself when the first 20 rows (one time through the pattern) came out looking pretty much like it was supposed to. I even recognized it as a part of the familiar pattern of Grandma's Round Dishcloth. (My mom, not my grandma - but my daughters both know it by this name ;) At this point I was a little disappointed in the yarn. I bought red, white, and blue specifically to make a patriotic one, but here it barely had any red on it.

The trick of the pattern is that it sucks you in. The pictures of the dishcloths look amazing and the pattern looks short and sweet. HA! At the bottom of the pattern comes the catch: Repeat rows 1-20 eight MORE times (total of nine times). Man, and my index finger is already painfully tender from shoving the pointy end of the needle around. (Remember - no knitting for over a decade = no callous.) But I had to keep going for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see how far before the blue would show up and 2) in trying to find the pullout part of the skein I yanked the guts out of it and had to knit all of that so it wouldn't tangle :P 

While the first part came out exactly according to pattern directions (a minor miracle in itself), I noticed I was knitting a little more quickly and confidently on the second part...but I think I probably goofed a row or two. No prob. I can't see any glaring mistakes and anytime a row didn't end with the right number of stitches I just repeated that row and voila, it came out okay. Luckily, the pattern has a steady increase of leftover stitches at the end of every other row so I can keep track of where I am fairly well...and if I actually did put the same row in twice it doesn't show ;)

 At the end of the third time through the pattern the blue is just barely starting - yay! But my hands need a break, so...well, blog it! Oh, dang it. Now that I'm looking at the picture I think I found a mistake...but I bet it won't matter when I'm washing dishes with it, eh? ;)