Mason Dixon Ball Band Mop Cover!

This was my project for the weekend: to try and make myself a knitted mop cover. I was inspired by Mandy (Green Mountain Mama) with her knitted swiffer cover and thought I might like to give it a try. I don't have a swiffer, but I do have a scotch brite mop, which when I put an old towel on it, the towel always falls off. The wet pads that you can buy for this kind of mop can be quite pricey and sometimes they make my floors sticky. I thought to myself how can I make a cover that will be hard to come off? I really like the colorful ball band dishcloth pattern, so I definitely wanted to use that part. Here's what I came up with: a fitted cover that slips on and then can be tied with a drawstring. What I ended up with looks like a sweater or soaker for a mop! I think this will be wonderful to use for damp (and even dry) mopping my floors as well as soaking up those nasty milk spills, then just toss into the washing machine. What could be easier? Now I have no excuse not to mop!

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Delicious Chewy Spiced-Up Ginger Cookies

Here is my Eye Candy Friday post for this week:

I just finished baking some delicious chewy spicy ginger cookies and thought I would share. They are crispy on the outside, but chewy in the inside. The recipe is called Spiced-Up Ginger Cookies. I made one modification to the recipe. I used King Arthur 100% white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose. This is a new, but similar recipe to the ginger snaps I usually make. I thought I would try this new recipe because it calls for candied ginger. I used crystalized ginger. Ginger is a natural anti-inflamatory, so I thought what would be a better way to get some ginger in our diet. I know I have my aches and pains. There is usually always someone complaining in my household... this week especially my youngest son's neck was hurting because of a too heavy backpack. What would be a better way to end this school week than to have homemade ginger cookies waiting for them when they come home from school. I know he and the rest of my boys will love these cookies. I didn't roll them in sugar. I usally only do that at Christmas time to make the cookies special. I think this recipe will be a keeper!

I also finished my second "swish with a twist" done in white peaches and cream. After doing it a second time the pattern really gets easier. This is a very enjoyable pattern and I know I have many more in my future!

Swish with a Twist

Swish with a twist from Creative Knitting Magazine is my first dishcloth I have made since I joined dishcloth fun kal. The only reason I made the cloth so fast is that I brought it with me for the drive and wait to move my son back to college yesterday. The pattern is a fun and a different type than the Mason - Dixon ballband and the garterlac because you do slip stitch twists which are like tiny cables. I enjoyed making it except I had a casualty, one of my beloved cable needles is lost in my car for eternity. There is no way to get that needle out with out taking my car apart. I definitely don't recommend this project for the car! One thing I did find out is that it is really not necessary to have the second cable needle because the one single slip stitch is so big that it just hangs out in front while it waits to be picked up.

After we moved my son into his dorm, I convinced my husband to check out Walmart and AC Moore in Dartmouth for yarn. I was hoping this Walmart would have some different colorways in their peaches and cream one pound cones. No such luck, so we moved on to AC Moore. I scored two one pound packages of 100% cotton mill ends. It was the first time my husband joined me in one of my yarn purchasing maneuvers. Even though I didn't bring my coupon from home, we both were able to use the store's 50% off coupon each to buy the yarn. I think AC Moore is very commendable for giving us the coupons. The final cost was only $5.oo for both packages. Here's a picture of what we bought:
Something happened yesterday that really made me know I was addicted to knitting not that I didn't already know I was. After cooking something in my old black cast iron fry pan I was distracted and inadvertently left the gas on under the pan with a plastic spatular resting there. Needless to say the smell alerted me to what I had done. At first I was terribly worried about ruining the pan which was handed down from my grandmother, then I burst into uncontrollable laughter for when I picked the spatular up there were all these tiny plastic fibers and my first thought was I can knit that! See for yourself and I'll leave you with that thought!
P.S. Does anyone out there know how to remove the plastic film that is left in my pan? I was thinking scrubbing it with steel wool and then re-season. What do you think?