A Bluestocking Knits

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Thoughts on the Muriwai Bathmat, and a Mini-Muriwai

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A few episodes — well, quite a few — of "Poirot" and I have a Muriwai Bath Mat, a pattern by Mel Clark, in her book (with Tracey Ullmann) Knit 2 Together.  I started this around the middle of 2008, I'm sorry to say — my advice to anyone who wants to knit it is to have lots of circular needles on hand!

This is my usual Sugar 'n Cream dishcloth cotton from Michael's, here in Icing Sugar (white) and Strawberry (pinks and white), knitted together.  I had one of the mega-balls (400g/14 oz) in white, of which I had a good deal left, and numerous regular (2 oz) balls of the pinks, so I calculate this as most of 6 balls of the latter — the whole thing weighs 630g.

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It's an easy pattern, but a bit tedious, and obviously I had a bit of a problem with this, as one of the corners is quite wonky — an attention error, I suspect.  Since I didn't have the same gauge as in the pattern, I worked the center section roughly as indicated, then just kept knitting until I thought it was about the right size (with a little extra to allow for shrinkage, wh. I'm sure it will do), so the center section on mine is a little "smaller" scale-wise than the original — oh well.

It seemed more and more obvious as I went that this pattern would scale down to dolls-house size very easily, and indeed it did! —

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The Mini-Muriwai is in crochet thread from Michael's — Aunt Lydia's, I suppose, but I don't know which blue, though it is very pretty.  I worked this mat on US000 needles (1.5mm) in a couple of hours, just dividing the full-sized dimensions by 12, and estimating the gauge.  The increases are, curiously, a little awkward on the miniature version as well — I thought I was doing the increases the same on either side of the corner sts, but I guess that one being enclosed, as it were, by the corner st on the right needle, and the other exposed at the beginning of the left needle, made a difference somehow, either in how I laid them on the needle or how I worked them on the next round.  Oh well!

I was aiming for about 2 1/3 x 3 in., and got 2 3/4 x 3 1/4, so a little off, but not too bad.

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The picot edging is worked here by binding off 5 sts in every repeat, instead of 6 as on the full-sized mat, which reduction I thought would be better for scale, though I suppose looking at the final mat, it wouldn't really matter one way or the other.

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4 responses to “Thoughts on the Muriwai Bathmat, and a Mini-Muriwai”

  1. Mary Lou Avatar
    Mary Lou

    Adorable. I’m going to Chicago in a few weeks to meet my sisters. I think we should go to the dollhouse Fairy Castle. They’ve never seen it, and it has been recently restored I hear. I’ll see if they have any bathmats.

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  2. Regina Sanchez Avatar
    Regina Sanchez

    Hi,
    I am trying to make this mat. I am not an experienced knitter but I can usually figure it out. I am really having a hard time with understanding the increasing of the corners. Is there a term for this type of corner so that I can find a tutorial?
    This is the part I do not understand:
    Rnd 2: M1, knit to marker, m1, slip marker, (sm), k1, sm, repeat from
    Where does this start?
    Any help would be appreciated.
    Regina

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  3. Regina Sanchez Avatar
    Regina Sanchez

    Thank you.

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  4. Jeanne Avatar
    Jeanne

    Regina, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it called anything, but probably mitered corner?!
    It’s easier to actually do than try to visualize. I don’t have the pattern in front of me at the moment, but I think I remember how she did it. Once you’ve done your set-up round, you should have two markers at each corner, with a single stitch between each pair. Starting at, say the lower left corner (LL) – this LL pair of markers being the end of the round – work your first M1 (which will be outside the pair of markers), then K across the side of the mat to the next corner (LR) to the first of the two markers. M1, slip the first marker, K the corner st, slip the second marker, M1. Then K up the next side of the mat to the corner (UR), M1, slip the first marker, K the corner st, slip the second marker, M1, etc.
    I always seem to think of this as starting with the long side, then the pair of increases, side, pair of increases, and so on, so that I’d “end” the round with a pair of increases, but Clark has you start with one of the pair, then work your way around and finish with the second of the (first) pair. Think of it whichever way is easiest for you! There is a lot of border on this mat, so you’ll have plenty of time to decide.
    What you are doing is keeping the corner st (the one between the markers) intact and making your 2 corner increases on either side of it. Some patterns have you use just one marker – it doesn’t really matter as long as you be sure to keep the M1, K1, M1 maneuver in exactly the same place. It’s a little difficult to see this as you work it in this pattern, since the center st is garter – some patterns would have it in stockinette, which makes it more obvious, as does using a yarn-over for the increase, because then there is a nice lacy hole on either side of the corner st. I think Clark wanted a more solid appearance here, so she chose the garter/M1 method. The nice thing about using garter is that if you get off a stitch, the mat will still lie flat, and your mistake won’t be quite as apparent as it would if you’d done the corner in stockinette – this happened to me, as I was using only 1 marker and I guess I dozed off about halfway along, and one of my corners is off by one stitch!
    (You are in fact making an isosceles trapezoid/trapezium on each side of the center rectangle,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isosceles_trapezoid
    with the angle of the legs at 45 deg.)
    Hope this helps!

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