Something New For The Kitchen

Yesterday was one of those days that made me start thinking. The seasons are getting ready to change, and I needed a little change myself. So, I spent quite a long time reading blogs and newsletters and found just what I needed! I craved a bit of brain food, so I decided to learn a new crochet stitch and make some new things for the kitchen.

The HeartStrings Newsletter led me to Needlecraft University where I looked at all the new classes that were listed. The Polish Star class intrigued me, but I really didn't want to take a class to learn just a stitch. Instead, I searched the web to see what I could find on the Polish Star stitch and came up with a free pattern for Polish Star Potholders from freepatterns.com. Within a couple of hours, I had learned a new stitch and made a useful potholder. (Isn't the net a wonderful place?!!) I do like the stitch, but have decided for certain, that at this time I wouldn't want to make anything large out of it. (at least not yet anyhow....)

I did find what I would call an error - or at least something I decided to change. First, when you insert the loops, the directions have you skip the first and last one on the bottom row. Then when they do get inserted , I found I ended up with a pretty large hole and my dc's split apart. Then next time I do this pattern, I will twist the loop before inserting through another. I also did the the following on the row securing the end loops:

Ch1, *sc in next sc, sc in next sc along with the loop, then sc in the next 5 sc, sc in next sc along with the loop * across, ending with a sc in the last stitch.

I hope that's easy to understand - writing what I did isn't as easy as it looks :-)

Then I decided that I had one new thing for the kitchen, I certainly had to have a couple of dishcloths, so the search was on again. I remembered that I saw a couple of free patterns for dishcloths on The Crochet Dude's blog, so I scurried back there to have another look. Wonderful! Just what I wanted. First I made the Sunshine Dishcloth using an orange, yellow, off white varigated out of my stash - it screamed "sunny and warm" to me. I found it to be both an easy and quick project to do and a joy to work on.
While I was looking at all the lovely freebies there, I saw another dishcloth pattern called Pentagon Dishcloth. Another must do - and again, another quick and easy cloth that finished up nicely.

Drew's directions are well written and easy to understand. I was very pleased with the quality and each row had a stitch count at the end. Imagine going to all that work on just a freebie! I've been looking at the patterns he has for sale, and I have added some to my wishlist. As soon as I'm off my pattern diet, I'm buying a few! Sadly, right now I'm down to necessary yarn purchases, and that's it.

I'm very pleased with my new additions to the kitchen. They certainly seem to brighten things up a bit. (And who says one can't get satisfaction from a quickie?!)