Knit a Year of Dishcloths with Knit Picks

I don’t know why I’m just getting around to writing about this a month in, but Knit Picks is having a year of dishcloths in which they are releasing a new free dishcloth knitting pattern every week this year. (Which is brilliant if you have a cotton stash like I do!)

The first offering was the pretty Orbital Dishcloth, which, alas, is crochet, but you could engineer a similar knitting pattern without much problem.

Other washcloth patterns I’m seeing on the site include the mitered square Ridged Dishcloth, the fun Bee’s Knees cloth (yes, it has a bee on it!), another crocheted one and the Arc en Ciel Dishcloth, worked in bold, rainbow colors with a fun stitch pattern (that’s a great stash buster, right there).

I’m not seeing a page where all these patterns are collected, but you can access them through the free patterns page, should you want to go and look for more later in the year.

Are you a dishcloth knitter? I’ve knit a fair number of washcloths and pretty much only use them to bathe my daughter. I need to get them into the kitchen!

[Photo via Knit Picks.]

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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