A Knit Turkey Dishcloth Might Make Cleanup More Fun This Thanksgiving

The worst thing to me about big holiday meals is cleaning up after. There are always more dishes than can possibly fit in the dishwasher (or you used the good china that can’t be washed in the machine), not to mention serving platters that are too big for the machine, all the pots and pans…

Maybe having a novelty dishcloth would make some of the cleaning a little more fun?

I don’t know. But the Turkey Day Dishcloth from One Crafty Mama might bring a little smile to your face while you’re elbows-deep in suds.

Dishcloths are generally quick and easy, finish in a weekend or a couple of evenings kinds of projects, and this one is even better because the textured design is simply worked in Garter Stitch on a field of Stockinette and the instructions are written out row by row, no chart-reading required.

This is a great choice for a newer knitter who wants to make something a little more involved but still perfectly easy, or for a knitter with more experience to whip up in a flash.

[Photo: One Crafty Mama.]

Why use dishcloths? Dishcloths are re-useable and save on kitchen waste. Most dishcloths are made using cotton yarn and can be thrown into the washing machine when dirty. This makes them very hygienic, especially when compared to kitchen sponges, which sit on the sinks for days if not weeks. Another great thing about dishcloths is when it comes to knitting the knit up quickly and are great for gift giving. Everyone needs a dishcloth. For gifting, It’s not something that has to be in fashion or a certain colour for the recipient to like it, though there are so many great dishcloth pattern designs out there.

Looking for Thanksgiving projects to knit? Check out these patterns we found on Etsy.

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations.

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind.

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca.

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl.

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions.

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic).

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only.

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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