Knitting

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Get Ready for a Kitchen Knitting Makealong

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In case you need another project for the summer, Modern Daily Knitting is hosting a makealong for kitchen towels and dishcloth-adjacent makes starting on July 15.

If you skipped over knitting washcloths or dishcloths when you learned how to knit, now’s a great time to discover the joy of this simple project genre. And if you already know you don’t need me to tell you.

Dishcloths are usually pretty fast to knit, they’re portable, they don’t take a lot of yarn. They’re a fun way to try out new stitch patterns and to use any little leftover bit of cotton yarn you might have lying around because who is going to complain about a dishcloth of many colors?

Bonus: everyone needs dishcloths. EVERYONE. Keep a stack on hand for when you need to pull together a last-minute housewarming or hostess gift (do people still host things?). Teacher appreciation? Back to school? Whatever the gifting occasion, a stack of cloths and some pretty soap is a great idea.

Even my slightly jaded almost 13-year-old prefers to wash her face with handmade cloths, AND my husband admits they are more absorbent and better for cleaning kitchen messes than the storebought cloths.

Finally, something we can all agree on.

Head to Modern Daily Knitting for all the details on the knitalong (crochet is welcome too!) and a great selection of patterns to get you started.

Do you knit washcloths or dishcloths? I’d love to hear why you love them.

[Photo: Modern Daily Knitting.]

Looking to knit more dishcloth patterns ? Check out these dishcloth patterns on Etsy 

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Have you read?

Knit a Fish Pouch, for Reasons

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]