a little bit of knitting  a blog in which I ramble on about the knitting I do for Designs by Emily

But I just had to take a little break after the Challenge.  On top of all that, it took me about most the week last week to get my head under control. You all are so nice to ask about my headaches.  I’ve finally gotten them back under control and I hope they stay that way.  I’ve learned my lesson and I will not convince my doctor that I will be fine on a lower dose.  Really.  What was I thinking?

I’ve been working on designing one of my new projects and I’ve set my test knitters loose on the thing.  They are excited about it. But thank goodness for lots of testers because we’re still working out some of the important details like needle size, gauge and how much yarn.  It’s definitely different than a dishcloth so I’m not sure on some of those details.  Don’t expect to see it for a while yet though.  I’ve given them until after the holidays because it’s a bit bigger than a dishcloth and I know that we are entering into the craziest time of year!

I also need to get busy on designing a free pattern for December.  The 24th is rapidly approaching and the KAL will begin.  It would help if I had an idea!!  Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. 

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I’ve drawn out the name of our lucky winner for week three!  I could draw out the suspense by writing about some new cloth that I’m working on, except that I’ve barely been knitting for the last couple of days.  I’ve been working on the same cloth for this whole time.  I really just needed to take a break.

So, without any delay…… week three’s winner is…… Helen Ensor!!!!!!!  Congratulations Helen!  I’ll be emailing you all the patterns from this week in a little while.  Thank you to everyone who cheered me on these past three weeks.  This challenge has been a lot of fun and has motivated me to add so many new patterns to the website.  I’m looking forward to running this challenge again in a couple of months, although I think I will have to modify the rules slightly to say something like 5 patterns in 7 days, or something like that.

I also drew out the 5 names for the end of the challenge winners.  Since the challenge lasted 3 weeks the 5 winners will each win 6 patterns of their choice picked from any of the patterns on my entire website.  The lucky winners are:  Debby C., Lynne, Laurie, Cheryl, and Pat! Congratulations to all five winners!  I’ll be emailing you about choosing your patterns. Pat cheered me on almost every day and also won the first weekly challenge.  Several of you cheered me on each day and I appreciate it so much.  I’m working on a couple of patterns for all of my cheerleaders — a couple of celebration themed patterns.  I was going to do a cheerleader pattern but I figured that not everyone has a reason to knit a cheerleader cloth.  The ones that I’m working on I hope will come in handy for you.  I’ll still need some time to get them ready though.

I think that’s all the news in closing out the Challenge.  I hope you all will still check in on the blog from time to time.  I’ll still be posting (although maybe not every day) about my knitting and projects that I’m working on.  I also do several other crafts that I may sneak in every so often.  You never know what you might find here!

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I’m sorry to announce this, but I’m giving up the challenge.  I really enjoyed this challenge and it got me knitting and designing and thinking about dishcloths every day.  But on the other hand, I’ve been knitting and designing and thinking about dishcloths every day for not only the last three weeks, but also the two weeks or so before the challenge.  I’m a little worn out on dishcloths.  Also, I wasn’t excited any more to design new cloths.  It was getting to be a chore and I do this because it’s fun and I love doing it.  It’s time to stop.

On the upside, that means I have some drawings to do and some prizes to give away!!  I’ll be organizing all that tomorrow.  Since I lasted three weeks, I’ll be giving away 6 patterns (of their choice) to 5 lucky winners.  I also promised a free pattern to everyone who cheered me along on this challenge.  I’ve already been thinking about what would be a good design for that and I have a couple of ideas sketched out.

This challenge was a lot of fun and I’m already thinking that I’m going to do it again after the holidays.  Mid-January might be a good time to start.  I’ll have had enough time to recover from all the Christmas craziness, and I’ll need something to keep me going so I don’t slide into a winter slump.

Now that I’m in the habit of blogging, I’ll be blogging a little more often than I was in the past.  I’ve got a few new things that I’m going to be working on.  One that I started today, I’m super excited about and I can see that it could possibly lead to a great new addition to the website.  I don’t want to give away too much before it’s ready, but let’s say it’s a little larger than a dishcloth. 

The other idea I’ve been working on since this summer I’m also very excited about, is something completely unique.  I’ve spent many hours searching high and low all over the internet for patterns for this and I can’t find one.  So I’m staying completely quiet until I get more of it finished.  I’m really hoping that people will like this pattern because it is different.  Although it defininely will appeal only to a certain group of people.  Now if that isn’t vague enough to confuse the heck out of you, then I don’t know what!

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Challenge Day…. on hold

Well, this could be it.  I don’t have a cloth ready.  It’s 8:30 at night and I don’t have one knitted, or even half knitted.  It is cast on with two rows done though.

I really don’t want to stop the challenge!!  But I don’t think I can keep up.

I really wanted to make it for at least 4 weeks.  But this is looking pretty bad because I ran out of anything and everything that was half prepared and I spent quite a while last night sketching out new designs and I don’t do too well with that part when I’m trying to rush it.

I’m going to give myself one day to see if I can get caught up for tomorrow.  But it’s going to be a rough day tomorrow.  The kids are off from school.

I know I still have to do the Weekly Drawing for last week.  I’ll have the kids home and they can help me tomorrow with the cutting and folding and picking out of the winner.

I’m sooooo sorry!!  I feel like I’m letting you all down!!!!

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Challenge Day 21

Thanks to everyone for the kind words about my headaches.  I’ve had migraines since childhood, I believe, but they weren’t diagnosed until I was in college.  I take a couple of medications for a couple of things with my head and recently I suggested to my doctor that maybe I could try a lower dose on one of them.  Well, that wasn’t one of my more brilliant ideas.  I was hoping to get off the the medicine but it looks like I won’t be and I have to go back to my regular dose.  So, that’s the story of why I’ve been feeling so awful lately.  I’ll get back to normal soon!

Here is the picture of the cloth that I added today:

Cherries Dishcloth

A simple pattern of a pair of cherries still on the stem with a leaf attached.  I thought it would be good for a kitchen.  I’m going to try to get some more fruit and vegetable patterns done, but they are actually pretty difficult.  They generally end up looking like roundish lumps.  Maybe now that I have my seed stitch trick down, I can work out some better designs.

I’m off to bed.  I’m tired tonight because I was up early with my little guy and then we spent the morning at the soccer fields for the last games for my older two boys.  I’m so glad soccer is done!  We have a few weeks of breathing room before basketball starts up.  Just tonight I was working on trying to sketch out both a basketball and a soccer ball.  Much harder than I thought it would be!  We’ll see if I can get it to look the way I want it to. 

Good night everyone!  Check back tomorrow for the Weekly Drawing to see who wins the patterns for the week.

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Challenge Day 20

I won’t go into a whole lot of details why, but I’ve been having a lot of troubles over the last several days with my headaches and so that has really put a crimp in my knitting plans.  I managed to finish the cloth today near dinnertime and was waiting impatiently all evening for it to finish drying after I blocked it.  I was very close to getting out the hair dryer but I really didn’t want to risk waking up the boys.  It finally dried enough to scan it without it looking blotchy.

I’ve had this idea for this cloth for a while.  It was either April of this year or last year that I thought of it, but I just never did anything about it.  I don’t know if anyone will actually like it well enough to purchase it, but I think it came out really nicely.  I’m very pleased with how it looks and I like it.  I was going to call it April Showers, but I thought a more general name of Rainy Day was better.

Rainy Day Dishcloth

The Rainy Day pattern is available for purchase for $1.49 and can be found on the “New” page.  I suppose I should be saying it can be found there ‘for now’ or ‘for a while’, because if anyone stumbles upon this post in a couple of months, I will have moved it off of the New page and onto some more permanent spot.  Oh well, I’ll deal with that later.

I’m off to bed so I’ll be rested for more knitting tomorrow!!

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Challenge Day 19

Wow!  I really can’t believe that I’ve been at this for 19 days.  I know that some of you are probably wondering how long I intend to keep this up. I had always hoped to keep it going for 4 weeks.  I figured that would be a respectable length of time.  If I could last that long, then I thought I could bow out anytime after that.  Now I think that if I can go for 5 or even 6 weeks (ack! did I just type that?) that would be awesome.  If I can last 6 weeks, that will mean I’ve added 42 new patterns to my site! Forty-two!  That would increase the number of patterns that I have by almost 50%.  We’ll just see if I can make it that long.  This week was rough.  I don’t know if I can last another three weeks if they are all going to be day-to-day like this week.

This is the pattern that I added today.  It’s just a cute, whimsical cloth.  I had thought of the idea last year when the movie ‘Sex and the City’ was coming out.  And then I thought I would have it ready last month when the movie came out on DVD.  At least it’s finally ready now. 

High Heeled Sandal Dishcloth

It’s just a cute strappy sandal.  Actually ’strappy sandal’ probably would have been a better name than the cumbersome one that I came up with.  I’m really bad at naming my patterns.  My pattern names are strictly functional.  I always think of the cute ones later on after I’ve put them ‘out there’.  Oh well.  I suppose it makes it easier for people to find them.  This pattern is available for purchase for $1.49 and can be found on the “New” page.

I’ve got to get back to my knitting now, so I don’t fall behind!  Don’t forget to leave your comments to get entered into the weekly drawing.  You can comment once on each daily post to be entered each day.  Commenting every day increases your chances of winning.  Thanks to all my cheerleaders who are keeping me going!  I love reading your comments and I don’t want to fall behind because I feel like I would be letting you down.  Thanks!!

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