Swiffer Cozy Pattern

Here is the long awaited pattern for my Swiffer Cozy, winner of an honorable mention in the Whiplash Competition Color theme.

The ballband pattern is a classic dishcloth pattern printed on the back of Peaches & Creme worsted weight cotton yarn. It's been popularized by the 2006 book Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne. This swiffer cover was directly inspired by Mason Dixon and their use of color and levity for ordinary household items like dishclothes.

For the swiffer cover, I recommend a superwash wool. You can use cotton, but I find that the cotton tends to get a little tacky on the floor, while the wool glides right over. My wool cozy has held up much better than the organic cotton version, and is my favorite for swiffering.

Materials:

• worsted weight machine washable wool or cotton yarn, assorted colors, this doesn't use a lot of yarn so it's a great way to use up leftovers or stash yarns.
• #7 16" circular needles
• 4 buttons
• needle for sewing in ends and sewing on buttons

Gauge: 18 sts and 32 rows = 4"

Pattern:

Cast on and follow the pattern for ballband dishcloth. You have a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting, right? Or get the pattern off the label of a ball of Peaches & Creme. It also can be found here under Textured Slip Stitch.

Knit rows 1-12 a total of three times. You should have 6 bands of the pattern and that's just enough to cover the base of your swiffer.

Knit one row
Purl one row
knit one row

start tabs:
change color if you'd like. knit 15 stitches. bind off next 15 sts. knit 15.

work these 15 sts in garter stitch for 16 rows.

buttonhole row:
Knit 3 sts. K2tog, yo,k 5, K2tog, yo, knit 3 sts.

knit three rows and bind off those 15 sts.

there should still be 15 sts on your needle for the other tab. work 16 rows in garter stitch. repeat buttonhole row instructions. knit three rows and bind off.

For the other two tabs: pick up 15 sts from right side. work 19 rows of garter stitch and bind off.

pick up 15 sts from left side. work 19 rows of garter stitch and bind off.

try it on your swiffer and note where the buttons need to be sewn onto the tabs.
Sew on buttons and swiffer away!

the business of soap

in my spare time, when i'm not working my real full-time job and when i'm not helping out with Bike29 and Five Hills Bikes and when i'm not attempting to be a good mother or futilely cleaning the house, i have a soap and lotion business called Hug-a-dub-dub.

I got started making soaps and lotions when i was trying to find ways to deal with my friend, the eczema, and discovered that i really liked it. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. As a kid, I can remember fondling the homemade soaps in gift shops at historic sorts of places like Williamsburg. I bought a bar, and brought it home and just smelled it over and over. and it was unscented.

for myself, i enjoy the smell of the soap itself. scents don't strike my fancy that much, but just plain soap is the best thing ever.

life has been pretty crazy since we started the bike business and i needed to take some time away from all my commitments. so i did almost nothing with the soap biz all summer long. only what i had to in order to maintain my wholesale relationship and my best and longstanding customers.

but i missed it. and am happy to say that i've been making soap like mad. trying to be prepared to do craft shows and holiday orders, like no one elses business.

one jaywalker done

here's a sneak peak at a future FO. Jaywalker sock in Socks the Rock Fire on the Mountain colorway. Done on size 1 needles. This is one BRIGHT sock. but i like how the stitch pattern compliments the varigated yarn.
The material is nice and dense and the fit on these is just perfect, or maybe a smidge too big.
look how the yarn patterned on the slip-stitch heel. I like that a lot.

birthday and sheep and wool festival

Monday is my 32nd birthday. I'm traveling for work tomorrow and will be in San Diego on my birthday. It's not all bad, we have some great friends there and I'll have a birthday celebration the day afterwards. We just did the husbands birthday two weeks ago and had a babysitter for a really nice dinner out and then a party with all of our friends -- so that means that my birthday celebrations will be pretty non-existant (except for the yummy cake that i'm baking.)
so that's why, when I pulled this sweet little package out of the mail box, I was so happy. One of my running dingo friends sent me these two gorgeous balls of Noro Silk Garden. So lovely, so thoughtful. Thanks Monica, you made my birthday!

The VT sheep and wool festival is this weekend. K and I needed something to do so we drove out to the fairgrounds to spy some sheep and alpacas.
I bought one skein of sock yarn. The vendor is Ball and Skein and her hand-dyed yarns were gorgeous. absolutely gorgeous. this is the one that i got, but I almost picked out the black cherry or the comet or the mountain spring.

If you want to control your purchasing at an event like this, by all means bring a three year old. I guarantee that you will not purchase anywhere near the amount of things that you might otherwise. there were some good looking naturally dyed yarns that i wanted to look at and i had hoped to pick up some wooden dps to replace the Susan Bates that i currently have for socks. but alas. one skein of sock yarn is all i brought home.

super-natural stripes baby cardigan

I had a little vacation from everyday life last week. I took the week off of my out-of-home job and tried to do as little work as possible on the other businesses in my life. The goal was to just rest my brain for a week in hopes that I could come back with more creativity, energy and power to get things done.

One of the things I did was to make this:into this:
Pattern: Super-natural stripes cardigan
Yarn: Blue Sky Cotton in organic and dyed
Needles: #7s and #5s and some #6 dps because i couldn't find the #5 dpns
Mods: I didn't use all organic and I did two buttons instead of one, but otherwise it's true to the pattern.
Comments: I forget who linked to her blog, but f.pea has some of the cutest free patterns out there. As soon as I saw it, I knew that this cardigan would make a great baby gift and I had several colors of the Blue Sky Cotton in my stash (it's one of those yarns thats very handy to keep around.)

The pattern was a simple, enjoyable knit and I definitely think i'll do it again. As a result of knitting this pattern, I researched how to pick up stitches and I learned how to do a single-chain crochet stitch. I love learning new things.

I'm not totally sold on the colors, but these are what I had in the stash. The organic came from a swap a few years ago and I never really found a good little project before. The colors were ones that I had, but I wish I had been bold and adventurous with the colors instead of 'typical' baby colors. oh well, it's still pretty cute.

What else is on the needles? Here is progress on Arisaig. The back has been knitted and I'm working on the right front. I don't want to jinx anything, but now that I have a feel for the lace pattern and the shaping, I think it will go faster and better.

Socks are great travel knitting. Here's the start of a pair of jaywalkers. I started this on the train ride to Boston to see last saturday's no-hitter at Fenway. These may just be my lucky socks.