Summer Beach Knitting

Our annual trip to Pine Knoll Shores and of course I had to have a Beach Knitting Project. I started the Great Absorba Bath Mat from Mason Dixon Knitting. It is knitted with 3 strands of Sugar and Cream Cotton Yarn on #11 Knitpics Circulars. It is a quick knit and will be rectangular in shape when finished. It is the first time I have tried the "Log Cabin" style of knitting and I really like it. By the way you may recognize the yarn as leftover from my "dishcloth that became a purse" project.

Dishcloth that turned into a purse!

OK, I'll admit that I want to knit faster so I can get more projects done. Right now, I call myself an English "throw" knitter and can go relatively fast if I concentrate. But those "Continental Knitters" blow me right out of the park in speed. So.....I decided to make a simple dishcloth in the Continental style of knitting figuring that I would have it mastered by the end of the cloth. Using a simple basketweave stitch, I thought that would give me all the practice I would need for knit and purl. Well, I was wrong. At the end of the cloth, I found I needed more practice. I just didn't have a very regular smooth stitch yet. I needed more and more practice so I kept on knitting and knitting and knitting. The cloth turned into a scarf which is when it began it's tranformation into a purse. I was designing as I went along because I really just wanted to use knit and purl and get a decent looking stitch gauge that didn't look all irregular. Well, as you can see, this became a rather nice sized purse knit in cotton Sugar and Cream Yarn. I am working on the lining now and should be showing the finished product soon. And yes, I think I have the Continental thing down pretty well. It just took more than a dishcloth amount of knitting. You can see my progression in mastering the stitch as the gauge is pretty awful at the beginning of the dishcloth, err... purse.