For the past few months I have been carrying a project bag in my purse. Harper is now 5, so after school pick up we usually head to the playground. She plays, I sit and crochet. Also, this uses up small amounts of yarn and is a small enough project to carry around. I’ve been using organic Blue Sky worsted cotton. It’s incredibly soft not to mention eco friendly. So if you want to make someone a housewarming gift or new baby gift these cloths are perfect. They make great wash cloths, so soft on the skin and feel so durable. I use a few for my face cloths, Harper uses some in her bath and now I am making crocheted ones for the kitchen.
Ok so THE CONS: I do realise that sometimes a knitted or crocheted cloth won’t scrub like a sponge. It may not provide the scrub one needs on a soup caked pot. For that I will use my spaghetti scrub that I mentioned in my last post.
Another CON: at first I had a hard time using nice cotton for the kitchen, but honestly it’s nice because it’s durable, good for the environment and fair trade. So I should just get over myself and use the beautiful cotton yarn. I bought the yarn for these reasons.
PROS: you get to use up all your scrap and leftover yarn, you won’t be buying sponges anymore and you get to do some crafting. t
I experimented with a few size hooks, the same yarn and the same pattern with a little variation for size of the cloth. I used 2 hooks, a size J, 6” by Addi and Chiao Goo bamboo hook in 5.5 mm.
INSTRUCTIONS, Part 1:
1. Make your foundation chain of 26 stitches. Make a slip knot with your yarn, looks like a pretzel. With your right hand pull the yarn tail over the rest of the yarn, create a loop. The left side lays on top of the yarn and the tail part will lay under the right side of the pretzel.
Make your slip knot, notice that the tail right side is under the yarn.
Step 2, slide hook into pretzel knot.
Pull slip knot on hook by pulling the two tails.
Slip knot hugging your hook, time to start the chain.
Starting the chain. With your left hand, ring finger and thumb hold the slipknot, the yarn is over your index finger. With your right hand, hold the hook and the yarn on the hook. Wrap yarn over (yo) and under the hook, then slide loop that’s on the hook over the tip and the yarn you just wrapped over. This is one stitch of the chain stitch. Continue this for 26 stitches. I have done the sample in green but the actual cloths I made are in white and pink.
After chaining 26 it should look like this.
In the next post I will continue to show you the pattern of making the dishcloth.