Centenarian Credits Knitting for Longevity

Dody Patterson is 104 years old and lives in Eugene, Ore. She learned to knit when she was 7, during World War I.

“I just love it, because it keeps my hands and arms and shoulders exercised,” she told the Eugene Register-Guard, and she keeps herself busy knitting hats for a local chapter of Caps for Kids.

The hats are distributed to churches and the local Head Start, and her hats come with tags that say “Dody’s Caps — Knitted locally by 100-year-old hands,” though the number has been crossed out and upgraded to reflect more recent birthdays.

Patterson says knitting is one thing that keeps her going; another is her diet. She gave up beef, pork and most dairy products about 20 years ago, she says.

“I think my diet and my knitting are responsible for my longevity,” she said. Sounds pretty good to me.

[Photo by Brian Davies, the Register-Guard / Associated Press]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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