A Bunch of Great Free Washcloth Knitting Patterns

In my scrolling through Pinterest the other day, I saw a pin of a cute butterfly washcloth knitting pattern that led me to a treasure trove of dishcloth knitting patterns.

The collection at Designs by Emily features more than 20 patterns with simple designs worked into a Stockinette Stitch background.

The Stockinette Stitch is a classic knitting stitch that creates a smooth, even surface on one side of the fabric and a bumpy, textured surface on the other. It’s a great stitch to use for dishcloths because it’s durable and absorbent. The simple designs worked into the Stockinette Stitch background are a nice touch that add some visual interest to the dishcloths. The collection of over 20 patterns offered by Designs by Emily is a great resource for knitters looking for dishcloth patterns, and with a variety of designs, knitters will have many options to choose from.

There are buildings such as a schoolhouse and a barn, simple shapes like hearts and stars, and animals like ladybugs and spiders.

This is a great little collection if you love knit washcloths, and they’re all free PDF downloads.

[Photo: Designs by Emily.]

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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