my favorite dishcloth

As I mentioned before, I have been maintaining a few

obsessive pursuits so far this year. Here's one of them:

I was introduced to the wonderful world of handmade

dishcloths by my friend Hannah a couple of years ago.

She taught me that cotton is the best yarn for these

things, since it is more absorbent than acrylic as well

as less scratchy (I hear acrylic yarn can make for good

kitchen scrubbies, since it is slightly more abrasive).

I had seen the sort of homemade dishcloth pictured above

and didn't much care for the way it looked. But I liked

the idea of having something to wipe down kitchen counters

and then toss in the laundry, easily washing out all the

germs and bacteria therein.

So I started with crochet. I enjoyed all the lovely colors

available. I tried single crochet, double crochet, half

double crochet, scallops around the edge, etc. They looked

great! Unfortunately, these all came out rather dense. The

tight weave, in fact, only thickened up in the laundry,

making them very difficult to get dry between uses at the

sink. So I moved on to a Granny Square pattern.

This one had more open spaces but was even thicker than

the last, taking me back to (you guessed it)...

the trusty knitted dishcloth. It's stretchy,

springy, and just the right thickness. When it

gets all bent out of shape, we know for sure

that the time has come to toss it in the wash

and grab another one off the shelf.

If you'd like to try your hand at this, find the pattern here.

Just be warned: it may take you down a long and winding road!

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