In 1882 the artist Paul Gaugin resigned his position as a Paris Stockbroker. He had been very successful at it and was a very prosperous man. He wanted to be a full time painter.  So, he split away from his family and spent the rest of his life travelling the world and making his dream come true.

First of all he went to Brittany and then on to Martinique and Panama, then to Arles in the south eastern part of France, where he stayed with Vincent Van Gogh.  He was looking for what he called the ‘natural life’. He also made two trips to the South Pacific which really fired his imagination and he used Polynesians and the islands for some of his finest paintings.

Unfortunately his canvases did not sell during his life time and his money soon ran out. On New Year’s Eve 1897, starving, penniless and ill, Gaugin went into the Tahiti jungle and swallowed a large dose of arsenic. However, his suicide attempt failed and after a short sleep, Gaugin managed to drag himself back to the coast.

He stayed in the South Seas and was constantly in trouble with the civil and religious authorities because of his somewhat bohemian lifestyle and his siding with the natives on cultural and religious matters. During his last years he was always ill and poor and on his death in the Marquesas Islands in 1903, the island’s bishop declared that ‘the only noteworthy event here has been the sudden death of a contemptible individual, a reputed artist but an enemy of God and everything that is decent!’

In 1980 one of Gaugin’s oil paintings, ‘The Guitar Player’ painted in Tahiti in 1892, was sold at Sotheby’s in London for £380,000.

I wrote an articlea few months back detailing which cards, in my opinion, were the best to use with the Timeshifted enchantment-from-Hell.  However, the most recent expansion to have been released at the time was Alara Reborn, and so I didn’t include some cards that I would have had I written the article, say, after Zendikar had been released.  This coupled with the fact that I discover new cards from all over time and space every single day makes for a pretty long list of other cards that I feel would work wonders with Pandemonium.  I can’t very well keep quiet about them, now can I?  Nope!  So, I’ve created the Pandemonium Strategy Minute to share my crazy ideas with the world.  Today’s guest: Norin the Wary!

This is a card that I actually neglected to mention in my original article; I was reminded of him by one of my friends and fellow writers and made a note about it in the comment section.  Now, I have finally decided to give him the spotlight he deserves.

The thing about Norin is that he seems to have been designed with Pandemonium in mind; sure, there are other “enter the battlefield” effects that he could work with, but honestly, with Pandemonium he’s essentially a free Shockevery turn (including those of your opponents, unless they decide to purposefully lock themselves out of the game just to avoid him).  He’s also almost completely unkillable; the only way to get him is to target him with an activated ability of a card that’s already on the table, and if it’s a creature ability you just need to get rid of said creature before your opponent can use it.  A Pandemonium deck design that includes Norin should be able to maximize creature output with cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, but the great thing is that even if you aren’t able to get a creature into play on your turn, you can just attack with Norin and still get use out of his ability (since it triggers when he attacks, too).  Your deck can get away with using just one of him; two copies is alright if you want to increase the chance that you’ll draw him, but since he’s basically worthless without a Pandemonium in play, I’d rather be drawing more useful creatures more often than Norin.  I almost always keep an opening hand that includes both Norin and Pandemonium, however; as long as you’ve got a stable mana base early in the game, there aren’t too many better hands to keep.  A Norin blinking in and out can pretty much disable one or more of your opponents’ early-game creature strategies.  I would seriously consider using him as a one-of in most, if not all, Pandemonium deck archetypes.  He’s far too worth it to pass up.

Bonus Creature!

I’m featuring Saltskitter as an added bonus in this article, because it’s a similar card to Norin the Wary.  It’s definitly more expensive, but it’s worth it for the extra power and toughness.  This card only blinks when creatures come into play, making it an even more important combo with Kiki-Jiki than Norin is, but its 4 toughness should be able to ward off most direct damage spells and effects, and he also functions as a good blocker.  If you decide you want to use white in your Pandemonium deck, give this card ample consideration.

Bonus Decklist!

Of course, I have my own Pandemonium deck, the current incarnation of which pretty much just kicks ass.  It’s a bit mana-intensive, but I’ve included enough helpful cards in that regard that it runs relatively smoothly most of the time.  It’s changed quite a bit since I first made it; I don’t see it undergoing too many major changes in the future unless some crazy balls-to-the-wall card comes out of which I might feel the need to insert more than one copy.  Here’s the list as it stands right now:

9 Forest

10 Mountain

2 Swamp

2 Savage Lands

1 Norin the Wary

3 Llanowar Elves

3 Sakura-Tribe Elder

2 Mogg War Marshal

2 Penumbra Bobcat

3 Flametongue Kavu

2 Mycoloth

2 Deus of Calamity

1 Shivan Wurm

3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Rampaging Baloths

2 Dragon Broodmother

3 Broodmate Dragon

2 Kodama’s Reach

4 Pandemonium

3 Heat Shimmer

As always, feel free to comment!  Let me know of any ideas you can come up with for Pandemonium, or how the decklist may be improved (I’m always open to criticism).  See you next time on the Pandemonium Strategy Minute!

The tallest chimney in the world is the one at the Ekibastuz power station in Kazakhstan. It reaches 1377 feet, or 420 metres and tapers from 144 feet (47 metres) at its base, up to 47 feet, or 14 metres at the top. This is the world’s largest coal-fired plant which came into operation in 1991.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Second in the list of the world’s tallest chimneys is the one at the International Nickel Company, Cooper Hill, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The Inco superstack at the Inco copper cliff smelter is 1250 feet (381 metres) tall.

Next is Homer City Generating Station Unit 3, at Minersville, Pennsylvania, USA. This is a coal-burning power station owned by Edison International and the largest of its chimneys reaches a height of 1216 feet (371 metres).

Kennecott Copper Corporation, Magna, Utah, USA, is part of the Rio Tinto group. It operates the largest open mining copper mines in the world and was formed in 1898. The name Kennecott was first used in 1936. The tallest chimney reaches 1215 feet (370 metres).

The Mitchell Power Plant at Moundsville, West Virginia, USA comes in as the fifth tallest chimney stack in the world. This power plant was built in 1971 and at that time the smokestack was the highest in the world but that claim to fame has now been superceded and although it is 1206 feet (368 feet) high, it is now the fifth tallest in the world.

Image via Wikipedia

At number six comes the Zasavje power station at Trbovlje, Slovenia which was built in 1974. It reaches 1181 feet (360 metres) and close behind in the list is the Endesa Termic at La Coruna, Spain which reaches a height of 1169 feet (356 metres) and is the second tallest chimney in Europe.

Number eight is at the Syrdaya Power Plant in Uzbekistan. The chimney at unit five is 1148 feet (350 metres) tall. It was built in 1975 and has four other chimneys almost as tall.

Next is the Turuel Power Plant in Spain. This is a lignite fired power plant a series of chimneys. The tallest of which is 1125 feet (343 feet). It has three ovens and 350 megawatt capacity.

At number ten is the Plomin Power Plant in Croatia which reaches a height of 1115 feet (340 metres). This coal fired power station is coal fired and has two boilers which can generate 330 megawatts of electricity, which is 13% of Croatia’s requirements.

Tarot originated around the year 1440 in Italy. The original cards were hand- painted and used in the courts of the nobility. They were a rare and exclusive passtime of the rich, and nothing more than a game.

There are many legends about the origins of these cards and they have been linked to India, the Jewish Kabbala, Egypt, or even ancient China. Historically there is no evidence for these stories.

Around the year 1500 these cards became known as tarocchi in order to differentiate them from ordinary trumps, or what we know as playing cards. The French form of this word is ‘Tarot’.

Folklore says that the gypsies, specifically Romanies, brought Tarot to Europe. This idea was actually started by writers from the mid 19th Century. Gypsies only started using tarot cards during the twentieth century. Prior to this they told fortunes by reading palms and interpreting ordinary playing cards.

Ordinary playing cards came to Europe from Muslim Spain around 50 years before Tarot cards arrived. These cards had four suits with kings and pages and the Tarot added The Fool and the Queens to this. These cards were originally used to play a game similar to bridge.

Around 1781 occult writers like Comte de Mellet started to mention Tarot as a divinatory tool. Interest in the cards as a system grew rapidly and they became an integral part of occult philosophy. They do infact tell a story which goes from the ‘Fool’ to enlightenment.

In the 21st century these cards are still used for prediction and interpretation of events and situations. There are some who consider the whole idea of prediction to be ridiculous and others who fear the power of the Tarot and it’s advocates. They have been called ‘tools of the devil’ and are said by some to be banned by the Christian churches. This is not true. The ban imposed by the church was solely on the ‘Pope’ and ‘Popess’ cards of the old decks. These were replaced by more acceptable images.

The cards themselves hold no power as they are merely cards which originated as part of a game. The real power comes from the reader’s ability to interpret the cards and relate them to situations. Those individuals who have a gift for this could do equally well using baseball cards!

In the hands of a sensitive, receptive reader, Tarot cards can work. They operate like a very basic map of a person’s mind and seem to work as a tool that facilitates access to whatever is really going on inside. It’s a little like looking at a rather distorted mirror. Images come and go and are far from clear. A little imagination can soon fill the gaps and make perfect sense.

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung studied the symbols within the Tarot and came up with the idea of universal symbols that can be used to map the human mind. He developed the idea that the unconscious mind of an individual is made up of the personal unconscious and a collective unconscious. This, he reasoned, partly explained the success of symbollic systems like the Tarot.

Most of us enjoy a good hot chilli from time to time and I’ve got to confess that I do occasionally succumb to the odd Vegetarian Spicy pizza from our local takeaway with loads of onion, mushrooms, olives, sliced tomatoes and jalapenos on it, particularly after a hard day’s graft tapping away at the keyboard listening to the dronings of some of my real estate clients extolling the virtues of some wonderful property with 20 bedrooms and two zillion acres of land which I know I could never afford.  Little did I realise that my need for this hot and spicy pizza could be down to the fact that chillies lift the spirit!

Research has shown that one of the prime chemicals in the peppers, capsaicin, clings to the receptors in the mouth and throat that detect heat.  This in turn send messages to the brain that the food we are eating is hot and the brain immediately says ”ouch, that’s hot mate”.  Endorphins, natural painkillers, are then released into the body which take away the Ouch Factor and this gives us a sense of pleasure.

As well as possibly helping to lift your mood, it’s also been discovered that hot chilli sauces eaten with meals slightly raise the rate at which calories are burnt for a couple of hours after eating so they’re good if you’re on a diet and it’s thought that they also stimulate digestion and relieve wind.

Why is it that one minute we’re being advised that some food or other is “good for you” so you go out, stockpile that food and before the first morsel has hardly had time to hit the side of your bowels, some other so-called “expert” comes forward and tells us that we should swiftly despatch it from the pantry to the bin as it’s lethal!  Such is the case with the poor, harmless looking Brazil nut!

It had come to the attention of the “first experts” that Brazil nuts had certain minerals in them that boosted the immune system and may protect against cancer.  Now our “second experts” have said that this mineral may push up bad cholesterol levels and raise the risk of heart disease!

These second experts from Warwick University (UK) found from their research that selenium which is found in Brazil nuts as well as grain, fish and meat, increased cholesterol levels.  They carried out tests which showed that the highest levels of selenium were found in those people who regularly took dietary supplements containing the mineral so it followed that if you over indulged on Brazil nuts and other foods that are rich in this mineral you’re at greater risk of heart disease.

The University took a cross-section of 1,042 people aged between 19 and 64 between 2000 and 2001 and, according to the researchers, of those people with selenium concentrations higher than 1.20 μmoles (micromoles) per litre of blood, levels of cholesterol were up by about 8%, and levels of a “bad” cholesterol associated with heart disease were raised by 10%. 

I would suggest that we take the research with a pinch of salt at the moment and I, for one, won’t be throwing my Christmas stash of nuts in the bin or scattering them onto the bird table!!  Oh, hang on; we’re not allowed to take a pinch of salt are we?  It’s bad for the health!!

Now please spare a thought for those who suffer from lachanophobia!  Never heard of it?  Neither had I until the other day.  It’s a fear of vegetables so my Vegetarian Spicy pizza definitely wouldn’t go down well with sufferers!

A 22 year old student from Portsmouth (UK) was frightened of vegetables when she was a child and this has continued into her adult life.  The poor girl has panic attacks not only when she finds the odd pea or carrot straying onto her plate, but also when she’s just walking past the greengrocery on display in a supermarket. 

She eats meat and cereals and can manage a potato and an occasional apple but nerry a pea or sprout passes her lips!!  And as for touching them – that’s definitely out!

Apparently lachanophobia affects a few thousand people in the UK and one of the best ways to curb the fear is to undergo “psychological re-programming” (sounds like something out of Dr Who!).

Anxiety UK, a phobia charity, has indicated that around 13% of British people suffer from some sort of phobia and most of them are treatable, usually by medication or self-help groups but they suggest that if anyone feels they’ve got a phobia they should, in the first instance, visit their GP for a proper diagnosis … Not quite sure what you’re supposed to do if, like 75% or more of us across the world, have a fear of the doctor’s surgery!!!

And finally, an amusing story of the Italian bakers who thought they could beat the credit crunch! 

Michelangelo Alesso and Alessandro Mancino had a nice little bakery in Turin but, due to the recession, they found their income dwindling as more and more customers abandoned them for cheaper, more run of the mill bread, so being extremely resourceful they decided to add a secret ingredient to their recipe and, once again found the customers flocking in to purchase.

Unfortunately this increase in trade was short-lived!  Police became extremely suspicious when queues for the bakery began blocking the footpaths.  Further investigation revealed that this secret ingredient was cocaine.  Apparently the bakers had turned to drug dealing in order to pay the bills!  Maybe they should have put some nice hot chillies into their mix instead!!

Over the years that I have been nonchalantly saving my pennies I tried to not let other coins get intermingled with the contents of this jar. Still, it happens and there were a few dimes and a nickel or two in here. Certainly less than a dollar so I will just eschew any errant final figure as to final total dollar value. The ability of pennies to shift around and occupy the actual volume is far greater probability than the skewed value a dollar’s worth of ’silver’ might cause.

The Penny Jug, The Mystery of What is it Worth?

(image by author)

I wish that I had weighed this now. It would have given a better descriptor of contents and a more accurate result of how much is actually in this jug. I always imagined a booth at the Fair with a ‘guess how many pennies are in this jar and win a prize’ scenario. Of course, the weight of the jar would not be revealed at such an event and the jar, whatever volume it was, would not be completely filled either. Just on general principle.

No way was I going to mule this heavy jar to the store as-is. I wanted to take it down in smaller increments. To that end, I used another smaller jar to transfer some portion into. Those automatic coin-machines are pretty neat; you drop your coins onto a perforated rack and press the “START” button, and you begin to sweep your coins into the maw of the machine. The perforated tray allows anything non-coin to drop safely out. Things like clothes lint, little wads of paper, paper clips (often, small dishes from office desk contains both paper clips and pennies.) The detritus-collector tray always shows what was dropped through and it looks pretty disgusting. I saw a very small copper coin that made it through the perforated tray; it was foreign. Maybe Polish, it was about half the diameter of a dime. It belongs to whomever cleans the machine now.

The machine will stall if it gobbles anything non-coin and this can cause the accurate counting of your coins to terminate. You may lose your money. Try to deposit the cleanest load of coins that you can.

Loading-up on Pennies

(image by author)

I decided to take more than just the small jar, so a plastic meal container joins the effort. As it is, this is a bit less than half the total volume of the gallon jug and still almost inconvenient to transport. But the effort will be rewarded. I needed some additional cash at the time for my son’s upcoming birthday presents and this would do quite nicely. I was surprised at how much was in this jar in total.

What you see in the smaller jar and the plastic container together was counted by the machine and it came to $22.42 (after the small fee that the machine extracts for the service.) Not too bad. This machine separates coins by value (size, thickness, weight, etc.) and tallies the total. It ejects a register receipt when you press the “finished” button. This is redeemable that day only towards grocery purchases or for cash payout at the Service Desk.

It may vary by store, city or other, but this particular location mandates that the receipt given be redeemed the same day. It cannot be saved for a future date. I suppose that this eliminates or reduces the chance of fraud or alternation of the printout.

As my Son would say, More Pennies!

Several days later I re-loaded the small jar and plastic container for the final run and with just a few handfuls remaining, bagged them in resealable freezer bags and took them all to be redeemed. This time the payout was $30.81.

How Much is a Gallon Jug of Pennies Worth?

This particular gallon jug of pennies came to a total of $53.23 but the actual amount might be different between the same size jug. Remember, depending upon how the pennies lay in the jug, the amount of other coins also present and counted, exactly how filled the jug is and of course in this particular case, the debited service fee that the coin-counting machine exacts your amount can and probably would vary.

If you have a jar or jug of pennies, what are you hoarding them for? Redeem them for money that you can more conveniently use. If the jug of pennies is a safeguard for the future still you can redeem them and deposit the money into a bank account. Stuff the folding money under your mattress. Either way, it will still be more accessible and convenient to use when you need it.

This is really a very good card, almost deceptively so.  Haste on a blue creature is virtually unheard of, but Future Sight did a lot of wacky things, and this was certainly one of them; the fact that you can snag a card the turn the Fetch comes into play makes it very worthwile as a utility card in many different types of decks.  I’ve always loved draw-discard abilities (as they appear at a discount; simply drawing a card tends to be more costly); the Looters of the Merfolk and Cephalid persuasions have always been pet cards of mine.  The ability to retool your hand every turn is one that can be taken advantage of in a myriad of situations.  Compared to Merfolk Looter, I feel that this card is better; true, you’re essentially using the Fetch’s ability on the same turn that you would be able to use the Looter’s, but I love the surprise element that haste grants, as well as the extra point of toughness.  With the haste tacked on, your opponent(s) won’t have a turn to decide they’d like to get rid of the creature before you start using it, not to mention the fact that this shouldn’t be a very high-priority target early in the game.  The fact that it has defender (and no power to begin with) should help to divert other players’ attention to other, more pertinent threats, allowing you to slowly but surely begin to gain card advantage.

This card works very well with cards that have the Madness ability, as well as with cards with abilities that trigger when you draw cards (such as Lorescale Coatl and Hoofprints of the Stag).  Also, should you be running a deck with Archmage Ascension (I wouldn’t reccommend it), Bonded Fetch can be one of your better options for getting the enchantment up and running as quickly as possible, and afterwards will allow you to tutor up an extra card each turn.

I hope you enjoyed this article; Bonded Fetch is a great utility card, and you should be able to find a lot of places for it to go.  Until next time!

The Moonsign astrology of Pisces adds a watery forecast and New Moon energy all at once for Thanksgiving day.

Moonsign Astrology of Pisces

Pisces is a spiritual sign that harkens back to the days of Roman persecution of people who wanted to follow Christianity. The symbol of Pisces, Icthus (fish), became iconic, and is still commonly seen throughout contemporary Christianity.

Christians who wanted to secretly alert others of their new religious persuasion painted the symbol of the fish on their doors, indicating a place of safe harbor for those who needed to hide from the Roman soldiers.

So, a strong spiritual sentiment exists for this Thanksgiving’s Moonsign Astrology. More than turkey day, we can easily tune in to the aspect of gratitude. Gratitude is an important focus due to the fact that gratitude brings more of the good things in life into our perspective. 

Image via Wikipedia

A spritual focus shows gratitude shared between the settlers and natives in one of the first Thanksgivings for the Pilgrims.

Pisces Moonsign Astrology and the Weather

Usually a drenching rain, Pisces astrology doesn’t normally sponsor violent storms. Weather permitting, travel should be smooth for this day, as well as, communication. Higher energy levels of the new moon facilitate positive social interchange.

Astrology of the shrouded aspects of Pisces.

Overindulgence is often part of the Thanksgiving feast. Wonderfully prepared food sends delicious aromas throughout the air. Giving way to the urge for an extra serving or two is a common event that goes along with a Thanksgiving feast. So, it may be wise to stay in tune with the feeling of fullness.

Overeating is attributed to what is known esoterically as “astral body cravings.” In the case of Thanksgiving, eating for sheer pleasure comes to the forefront.

When the tendency to overeat rears its ugly head on Thanksgiving day, don’t let the essence of Pisces lead you too far astray. Once the normal hunger has been satisfied, the food becomes a drug of sorts.

Drug addiction is often known to be a weakness inherent in the sign of Pisces. Food can be considered in the category of addiction when eating goes beyond sustenance. Everyone knows how overindulgence and Thanksgiving go hand in hand. If you are a diet conscious person, today could hold a double whammy for you.
Pisces Astrology and Planning

Pisces is in an incompatible astrology arrangement at this time. The Piscean shrouded qualities may tend to contribute to confusion. When planning a trip, gathering, or other special plans work on the details first. For this kind of Thanksgiving astrological climate, having the details out of the way circumvents last minute confusion.

Now, let’s get down to business!  The business, of course, is this guy:

I decided to do my first Card of the Day article on this creature because I’ve noticed that as good as he is, he’s incredibly underused in my current play group (I seem to remember one of my friends using him in a deck at some point, but he has since graduated and vanished off the face of the Earth, presumably into Toldeo, Ohio); not only that, but I don’t even remember any of us so much as discussing him at any point!  Now, I’m not exactly a walking encyclopedia of Magic, but I would normally hope that I would remember a card as useful and versatile as this one, what with the amount of casual and tournament play he sees on a still-regular basis (he was a hell of a weapon when Time Spiral block was in Standard).  Be that as it may, he’s on my mind today, and I would be loathe not to rave about him now.

I’ve always liked Morph cards; they provided for a host of neat little combat tricks before Wizards pussed out and stopped combat damage from using the stack (yeah, it was a good move flavor-wise, but come on!  So many cool interactions gone because the idea didn’t make real-world sense!  Hello!  This is a game about mighty wizards summoning random creatures out of the blue to throw at each other to see who’s better at being a wizard… it doesn’t even come close to making real-world sense!  Okay, I’ll stop now.).  Still, the ability to lay a mysterious 2/2 creature for 3 that could become anything at any time is pretty freaking awesome.  Granted, there were some crappy Morphs out there, but for the most part I was happy that they brought the ability back for Time Spiral block.  Vesuvan Shapeshifter is essentially the flagbearer for the Morph cards from those sets, and he really lives up to the title!  For a tawdry 3 colorless mana, you can get him on the board face-down; if it’s turn 5 he can just come down as anything already on the board, with the option of changing continuously at your whim.  Basically, you have a Clone that technically hits the table a turn earlier than the actual card Clone would, as you can play it face-down on turn 3 and morph it on turn 4, but it amps up the tricky factor to a whole new level.  If your opponents try to target it with something, if you happen to block with it, if it becomes blocked, or if it’s let through for damage, you can suddenly turn it into any other creature on the table for the nifty (gorgeous) price of 1U.  You can also use him as a surprise Legendary creature-slayer; it’ll be harder for your opponents to counter the effect, since you’re not just playing a Clone from your hand.

One neat little combo that I would like to mention involves Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Aphetto Runecaster, and/or Unblinking Bleb.  With these three cards out at once, you can keep morphing the Shapeshifter every turn and stack the Runecaster and Bleb triggers so that you can Scry 2 and then draw a card.  Constant library manipulation = awesome card advantage, and that usually leads to multiple games won.  The Runecaster in particular is a great card to use with the Shapeshifter, as you’re guaranteed an extra card every turn; this is a good way to get the usually clunky Archmage Ascension moving in the right direction, and of course will allow you to tutor up an extra card per turn once the Ascension kicks off.

I hope you enjoyed my little commentary on one of the best cards that I never see used; I’m certainly planning to get my hands on some in the near future.  They’re pretty cheap, and easy to get your hands on, so if you haven’t thought about giving this guy any use, think again!  If you get any cool deck ideas for him, feel free to put them in the Comments section; I’d love to see what you can come up with!

This is easier than it sounds.  Try a few rows to get the hang of it.  It requires a little maneuvering, but you’ll catch on quickly enough!  Just remember that the right side (RS) is always facing you!  Don’t turn at the end of rows!  (This is what makes the ridges.)

You will need cotton yarn and either an I or J hook.

Ch 32.  (Once again, I like my washcloths big, so if this is too big for you, just chain any number of stitches; make sure you add 2 for the starting row.)

Row 1: Skip 3 ch (counts as first dc.)  Dc in each ch to end.  DO NOT TURN!

Row 2: Ch 1.  Sc in front loop only of the last dc made.  *Sc in front loop only of next dc to right.  Repeat from * to last stitch.  End with slip stitch in top of turning ch at the beginning of the row.  Do not turn.

Row 3: Ch 3 (counts as first dc).  Skip first st.  Dc in back loop only of next and each st of the “last-but-one” row, to end.  Do not turn.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until your washcloth measures square.  Ch 2 and sc a border around, making sure to do 3 sc at corners.

Happy scrubbing!