Sunday, December 3, 2006

Reflections on a dishcloth

Started this yesterday while Elsa slept in the car:



It's the Ballband Dishcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting. It's a ton of fun and looks much more complicated than it is. Think I might make a bunch of these with the Sugar and Cream cotton. Gotta love those $1 skeins, a much needed compensation for my excesses at Purl.

As I slowly construct the Ballband Dishcloth brick by brick, I can't but help notice that it's the kitschy equivalent of a modernist grid. I feel like Agnes Martin as I knit, though she would probably never use such bright colors. The colors are Mondrian, but the pattern is Martin.



The beauty of the dishcloth, though, is that it approaches abstraction, but is still grounded in reality. It is meant to be wiped along the back of a wet plate.