april swap

Well, I was a little late getting my April Lady of the Month swap package out, but the recipient received it on Monday. This month was a little easier just because the Lady gave a few more ideas to what she really likes, including sci-fi themes, shows, and books, as well as games and puzzles. I had a lot of fun knitting the cloths for this month, too! Here's the swap package in its entirety:

In the package, I included two knit washcloths: a colorful flower cloth and a blue and red striped cloth; a bar of handmade lavender-scented soap; two books, one on Sci-Fi trivia and one Sudoku; a little bookmark; and two skeins of Lily Sugar’n Cream cotton yarn. I am in love with both cloths! These are two of my very favorites and I hope they are well received!

I used the pattern Reverse-Bloom Flower Washcloth by Cindy Taylor from one of my all-time favorite pattern books, Weekend Knitting. This project was a lot of fun and I will totally make another one sometime! I made a few alterations to the pattern in order to make the center of the flower stand out more. This project was pretty much a stash buster; I used up some of my cotton scraps to make a lovely flower.

The second cloth I included was an ultra-simple garter-like striped cloth. I used the pattern Chinese Waves Cloth, which worked up far slower than I anticipated, but it is one of my favorite patterns. It is very clean-looking and lends itself well to adding stripes. As per the pattern, all slipped stitches were slipped purlwise, but the cloth knit up so loose that, when I knit this pattern again, I used smaller needles and slipped stitches knitwise to tighten things up a bit. I love using the vibrant red against that beautiful cornflower blue--it’s extremely striking.

The soap was another handmade concoction, lavender-scented and the sci-fi facts and trivia book really caught my eye. I love the artwork, and that was my main motivation for including it in the package.

This package is 40/52 for my 52 Project Challenge.