Two Dishcloths Down, Possible Tribbles To Come

With all the leftover Lily Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn I have from last year's foray into dishcloths (and since it's summer), I thought I'd make some more. Having loved the Chinese Waves pattern the first time around, I just had to make another. The second dishcloth is a variation of the diagonal garter stitch DC with a textured center using skp and YOs.

FYI: If making the Chinese Waves DC, be sure to slip sts k-wise to get a holey look which includes the illusion that one "stitch" is split horizontally by two colors. In contrast to my Chinese Waves #1, I tried slipping sts p-wise this time round, and my dishcloth looked completely different and "wrong." So I frogged and started over. Go figure that a simple twist of a stitch makes such a difference. Next up: Tribbles. Great use of scrap yarn!

Tonight I listened to a few Knit Picks podcasts since I've gotten severely behind. Of course, the first podcast I listened to was the one about the new fall yarns from Knit Picks! Next I moved on to the Cookie A. interview and various snippets of other podcasts. I still need to listen to more... so behind.

On Ravelry, I saw that I have 6 WIPs... Hmm, maybe I should label some of those as hibernating? Anyway, the projects I'm actually working on now are: Bright (drape neck summer top), Verde (market bag), and soon a Lola bunny rabbit. My 2 pairs of socks and cell phone cozy have been on the back burner. I might frog the sportweight pair of socks because they're really heavy, and I'd rather use my green skein of Louet Gems on something else, truth be told. Maybe a hat? The ankle socks are suffering from second sock syndrome all due to my not making both at the same time. Hopefully, I'll get those finished in time to enjoy wearing them this summer! The cell phone cozy... dunno... My ultimate number of WIPs would be 3: one sweater/top, one pair of socks, and one kid project.

The new Knit Picks handpainted sock yarn, Stroll Hand Painted, looks awesome! I'm so happy that Knit Picks has come out with a machine washable handpainted sock yarn. What a pleasant surprise! As beautiful as Imagination is, I probably won't ever buy any more specifically to make socks since it's alpaca (I love alpaca, but not with socks), not machine washable, and felts very easily. The colorways of the new yarn are really, really cool!

We went to the zoo today -- always enjoyable. There was a 2-week-old orange-colored baby silver langur. Just as a zoo keeper was explaining that the female holding the baby wasn't the mother, another female came over and took the baby into her arms. Supposedly, all the females were passing the baby around. The kids and I decided to take the boat ride through The Islands, and surprisingly Marie was allowed to sit by herself in front of Ian and me. Both of them really love being at the zoo.