Moss Grid Hand Towel

I also finished the moss grid hand towel yesterday. The yarn ball was fun near the end:

I knew I was running out of yarn, so I tried doing eleven grid repeats instead of twelve, but didn't even have enough yarn after that for two rows of the moss border. So I ripped back and ended up with ten repeats and a full border, plus some left over. Here it is, all crunchy before being washed:

and here it is after, much softer after a couple of trips through the washing machine:

(I was doing laundry anyway, so I tossed it in two wash loads and one dry load.) It came out rather non-rectangular, but I was able to stretch it into shape. I haven't tried drying my hands on it yet. It seems pretty casual looking for something hand knit out of linen. I blame the yarn. (It was kind of slubby, and washed to look worn.) I probably should have used smaller needles, given how loose the gauge looked. I'm not sure if it's because I seem to be a loose knitter (promiscuous and loose! shame on me!), or if the stiffness of the yarn made getting gauge hard. (As in, I'm not sure going with a smaller needle would have helped.) If I knit with flax/linen again, I think I may use the kiddie knitting machine H is passing on to me to knit it up quickly for a pre-wash before proper knitting.

Oh... if I think of it, I'll try to get a better photo using daylight some time.