this is for my local cyberfriend meredith at like merchant ships, who asked about frugal gifts for graduates. (i tried to post this in your comments, meredith, but i kept getting an error).
last spring one of our neighbors graduated high school. this was huge to us, we had known her since she was just a child in grade school, and we wanted to congratulate her on such an important acheivement (which, honestly, we weren't sure would happen for her). having more stash than money, and almost no time, i came up with this handmade washcloth and soap, which i call a pampering gift set.
the great thing about this washcloth is that it took only 15 minutes to make! i knitted it on the ultimate sweater machine from joanns. five minutes of back-and-forth, 10 minutes of crochet around, and it was done. ella made the soap (with supervision, of course), and the thing that took longest was waiting for the soap to harden. when i give these as gifts, i present them on pretty thrift saucers that can serve as a soap dish.
if i were making this for a man, i'd use a more masculine color of yarn (maybe even some of the cool camo stripe yarn), a soap on a rope, and i'd present them in a mug or maybe even a toy sailboat.
the pattern i used is the knitting machine dishcloth pattern by magic pixie knitter, but instead of her scalloped edging i used a shell edge. since first knitting this pattern i have tried lots of other edgings, and i've adjusted it to use on other machines--if you use fingering weight yarn on a standard gauge machine, you get very soft, light washcloths, just right for newborn babies.
this has become one of my most popular gifts, one which people actually request over and over. when i have time i do prefer to knit washcloths and dishcloths by hand--not because hand knitting is better, but because i enjoy it and i can carry that kind of project around in my purse. however, when time is short and money is tight, there is nothing like running up a nice gift at the last minute to make me feel like super present lady.
i am learning more and more about using my knitting machines, and i hope this summer to put them to use making more than just rectangles. and again, to answer the question i get nearly any time i mention knitting machines: no, knitting by machine is not cheating. i use a sewing machine too, you know. :)
