Kitchen Warming

A Basket Full of Dishcloths

A kitchen remodel is a good time to update kitchen linens.  Our good friends Kim & Barb (http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2011/10/wedding-number-3-or-iowa-revisited.html) recently updated their kitchen, and I felt they need new matching linens.  They actually spent most of the spring with no kitchen while the contractor didn't work on the stripped down room that use to be the heart of the house.  But patience and time rewarded them with a shiny, newly equipped.  Early on in the process I asked, repeatedly, what color are you painting the walls.  I am sure they got tired of hearing me ask.  One visit to their home yielded the paint sample.  A red kitchen it was.

French Stripped Tea Towel

Tabbed Tea Towel

My beautiful wife, Natalie, was convinced to join me in my secret project to knit some new kitchen towels and dishcloths for our friends.  We started in our stash and found scant red yarn to work with, but we soon had some red cotton and linen yarns on our needles.  We knit dishcloths, tea towels, a tabbed towel, a tawashi and a table runner.  Much red yarn was used.


Dishcloths Knitted by Natalie

I noticed a pattern for little, knitted, scrubby things called tawashi (unsure if that is the singular or plural).  I decided to knit one of those with the scrap yarn. It was a quick little knit, too.  I also made a pinwheel dishcloth out of the linen leftovers.  The tawashi was a success, the pinwheel dishcloth, not so much.  I was just about finished with the pinwheel when I noticed my dishcloth had a decidedly boob like look.  I was so close to being done I thought okay, too late to stop, I had to accept I knitted a boob.


Heart Shaped Tawashi

I had also thought to knit some placemats for our friends.  I had a pattern and some great, clearance yarn for my placemats.  Strangely, the yarn decided it did not want to be placemats, but a very showy table runner.  Who was I to say no, runner it was, with a lovely and time consuming I-cord edge to boot. 

Boob like Pinwheel Dishcloth

Yesterday, I amassed our knitted linens for Kim & Barb and was surprised we had knitted so much.  I mentioned to Natalie that we might have overdone it a bit.  She laughed and said wasn't that normal for us.  I only hope our friends have enough room in their new cabinets for all the kitchen towels and dishcloths we knitted.  We wish them much good dish washing in their newly redone kitchen.

Ballband Dishcloth