19 September 2011

Dish Rag Tag - and Out Again

I decided to join something called "Dish Rag Tag" this year.  The idea is that teams of ten compete to pass around a box containing a pattern and yarn, each one knitting the required item and sending it off to the next person with the pattern and a fresh ball of yarn.  First team to finish, wins.

Not that I needed anything else in the queue, but it sounded fun at the time.

Yesterday, when I picked up my mail, I had a box.  It had been mailed two days before, so the fact that I usually get boxes only on Saturday wasn't a problem.  In it was the following:
An emergency suppplies kit, a little package of items for the organizer and her helper-daughter, a pen, and the completed dishrag made by my predecessor.  Also, a ball of cotton yarn and the pattern and instructions, not shown in this photo.

As soon as I got home last night, I cast on:
Yes, those are Brittanys.  They were the quickest pair I could find in the correct size, and I thought it a worthy use of them.  I do love them, although mostly I knit on circulars.  I knew I'd be doing this at home and not have to worry about dropped needles.

It went very quickly, and by the time I went to bed I was about halfway done:
I finished it this morning.  I decided that a nice treat to my successor would be some soap (since these look more facecloth-sized than dishrag-sized to me, and that seems appropriate for facecloths), and quickly created some in Tropical Mango scent.  For fun, I used some almost neon-orange melt-and-pour base, and the white part reads "Go, Girl!" which seemed appropriate for cheering on a team member:
This is what went into the box that I sent; note that I added a bar of the same soap into the organizer's gift bag:

I dropped it into the mail on the way home from a movie tonight. Since it is Sunday, it wouldn't get picked up until Monday anyway, but this way it's in the 6:00am pickup and hopefully will reach Pennsylvania, which is its next stop, on Tuesday. I memorized the pattern, it's that easy, and may use it in the future for gift items. I was tempted to find a flower or frog applique and sew it to the dish rag since it looks a bit like a lily pad to me, but that might make it less useful, so the soap will have to do.

Now back to my regularly scheduled knitting, already in progress:  a chemo cap (nearly done) and the edging on a baby blanket I was commissioned to make.  Story and photos when that one is done, too.