Knit Dishcloths to Clean Up Your Holiday Meal

It may be a little late to knit much for the table for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, but you still have time to whip up a dishcloth or two to help you with the cleanup. And I don’t know about you, but I feel a little better about cleaning when I have nice tools, and nothing’s better than handknit cloths for scrubbing off the last bits of potatoes and pecan pie.

Here are some great options for easy but pretty knit dishcloths.

Of course I couldn’t resist sharing the classic Ball Band Dishcloth from Peaches & Creme, made famous by Mason-Dixon Knitting. Such a fun, easy pattern and it looks great in bold colors. There’s also the hanging version from stitcher Cheryl if you have a place to hang your towel from.

The perfect scrubbie stash buster comes in the form of this garter stitch dishcloth from Lion Brand Yarn, which changes colors every two rows.

These lovely slip stitch dishcloths from the Purl Bee are a great introduction to slip stitch knitting if you’ve never done it before. It looks a lot more complicated than it is because you’re only working with one color on each row.

The Triangles Towel from Knit Picks is another cute one that has a section that folds over and attaches with buttons to keep it secure.

Lizard Ridge is an addictive stitch pattern, and this free Raverly download pattern from Laura Aylor shows it off to great effect. This is another one that would be fun as a stash buster.

The Gridded Kitchen Towel from 3 Sleeves to the Wind is a fun combo of a solid and multicolored cotton yarn in a nice textured stitch pattern that’s great for scrubbing.

And while technically not a dishtowel, the Ravelry download Tribble is a great little scrubby that’s fun to knit and is stitched into a circle to finish.

I can’t resist sharing one of mine, too, and among my faves is the easy Mistake Rib Dishcloth, which comes together quickly and has nice texture for cleaning or drying dishes.

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

Next Pattern:

I don’t know if it’s possible to look at the Snug Wrap from Sylvia Watts-Cherry and not smile. There’s so much fun stuff going on in it that if I had a bunch of sport weight yarn in my house I definitely would have cast this one on immediately after seeing it.

There’s stripes and circles of different sizes and colors, worked with intarsia. The wrap is worked sideways in both garter stitch and stockinette, so different sections also have different textures. Color blocking means you’ll use a lot of two main colors, and there are two more colors used for contrast throughout the piece.

As I mentioned, the project calls for sport weight yarn, and it’s already pretty big — 23.25 by 82 inches or 59 by 208 cm — so you probably wouldn’t want to use heavier yarn unless you just want to make it a super scarf. You could use even lighter yarn to make it more of a scarf than a shawl if you wanted.

The yarn used is a combination of Merino wool and recycled threads from La Bien Aimée’s yarn making process, so it’s a fun way to reduce waste while making something awesome.

The color motifs are depicted in charts in the pattern, but none of these are difficult so even if you’re new to chart reading you should be able to handle this pattern. The colors in the sample are so pretty but you can of course change it up with your favorites that will make you smile as you knit and wear this super fun pattern.

As usual, checking out the projects tab on Ravelry will show you some more fun color options. I love the idea of using jewel tones to give it a more wintry look, but the sky is the limit when it comes to color options.

You can find this pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Sylvia Watts-Cherry]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply