The Kitchen Post, Chapter 1 - with special craft room guest, Around the World Quilt a la Ima Jean.

So, first off, thought I'd post a pic of the finished kitchen towel - dubbed, the alien towel. It has the bias tape applied - 'the making of' detailed in the previous bloglet. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the finishing is done with a zigzag stitch in yellow thread for a fun, easy accent.

I have some other (comletely borrowed) ideas for more embroidered kitchen towels in the future, but these aren't even on my list o' craft projects, so we'll just hope I remember them years from now when the list is up for parole and happens to make it out on good behavior.

'The Kitchen Post' will document efforts to create a greener kitchen. This undertaking was begun many months ago and basically involved ridding the kitchen of paper products, most notably paper towels and paper napkins. Somewhere between 5 & 10 dishcloths have been finished one by one - usuallly an afternoon break from a larger knitting project. These were just finished during a long drive to and fro Oklahoma to visit my dad, grandparents and great-aunt. The unique and nifty thing about them is the knitting / crochet combo - first time for that (for me). I bought a crochet needle a while pack from Purl Soho with plans to learn some edging / finishing techniques, and I love the look of the dishcloth edged with a contrasting color - so fun!

The edging stitch shown on the dishcloths is a simple single crochet stitch. Examples, tutorials, etc are all over the web and I'm feeling too lazy to locate and post one right now (sorry!) - the one I used was printed out a while ago - pretty sure it also came from purlsoho.com - there are great tutorials and free patterns on that site.

Also, you probably can't help but notice the beautimous quilt in the background.? The dishcloths were purposely staged on the quilt to draw attention to my newly most prized item --- a blanket, hand-quilted by my grandmother, Ima Jean Gray (maiden name Kyle). I had to lay on some daughterly guilt to persuade my dad to go ahead and pass it one more generation down the line. I'm so glad he gave it up to finally be used instead of just sitting in protective plastic - it's so gorgeous! It's already living in the spare bedroom at our house - I love it so much!!

One of the best things about it is the hand embroidered name and date she put inside, on the lining. It was finished in '81 - she's 88 years old this year. She doesn't remember putting her name in it, so that was an even more special surprise - I think I actually shrieked with joy when I saw her name inside. :-)

I'd like to show her embroidered name for sentimental as well as historical value, ;) but I seem to be having photography difficulty, so won't bother with it just now - will very soon do a follow-up post with this quilted-embroidery treasure, an update on the to-be-felted tote bag, and a photo of Angela's major knitting accomplishments as of late - she finished the scarf and matching hat for Tim, so look out for this new fall fashion when the weather turns a little cooler.

On another note, it was a bit alarming today to hang a complete and lengthy list of craft projects either started or planned for the near future. Two realizations have already come from this - one, I'm going to have to refrain from adding any more projects until a few are knocked out - ideally starting on xmas gifts by the end of the month; two, it's actually inspiring to see these project ideas, even if only a show of momentary motivation. It's a bit like wishful thinking to believe that all of these would ever be completed, but it's a great record on which to reflect later (in the least).