Two-Tone Bias Knit Washcloth

July 27, by Sarah White. 2 Comments

The bias knit washcloth is a classic knitting pattern, so classic in fact it has a default name: Grandmother’s Favorite.

I like it because it’s super easy, but still fun and quick to knit, and it’s perfect for using just about every scrap of leftover yarn you have.

I had the teensiest little bit of blue yarn left from other projects that I wanted to use, so I stitched the first half of my washcloth with that, and the second half with a coordinating green.

It made a tiny cloth perfect for face washing, but of course you can use this method to make a washcloth or dishcloth of any size you like.

Materials

I used about 35 yards of two colors of Lion Brand 24/7 Cotton (colors Aqua and Mint), but you can use as much as you like to make a larger cloth
one pair size 6 US/4mm knitting needles
yarn needle

Gauge

Gauge is not critical but I got about 5 stitches and 10 rows per inch/2.5 cm in bias Garter Stitch

Size

My finished washcloth is about 6 inches/15 cm square. It’s a perfect little face cloth but just keep increasing a while longer to make yours bigger if you like.

How to Knit a Two-Tone Bias Knit Washcloth

With color A, cast on 4 stitches.

Knit 1 row.

Knit 1, yarn over, knit across.

Repeat this row until you are almost out of yarn or the sides of your triangle are the length you’d like a side of your washcloth to be. I had 30 stitches when I began decreasing.

Change to color B.

Knit 1, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit to last 3 stitches, knit 2 together, knit 1. One stitch decreased.

Repeat this row until 4 stitches remain (the last row will end with the decrease, not a knit 1).

Knit 1 row.

Bind off. Weave in ends.

More Knitted Kitchen

You can find the full list of blog hop patterns as they become available on the main blog hop page, or join us on Facebook.

Next Pattern:

Comments

Louise says
July 27, 2017 at 12:54 pm
How do you change colors so as to hide the tail of Color A? Thanks, Sarah! I make lot of these superquick (Portuguese purl), look forward to doing the two-color version!
Sarah White says
July 28, 2017 at 4:06 pm
Just start knitting with the second color at the beginning of a row, leaving a few inches of both hanging at the side. When you weave in the ends, make sure you weave the color A to the color A side and the color B to the color B side.

Have you read?

Tips for Picking the Right Color Yarn for Your Project

I have never been all that picky about the colors I use in knitting projects. When choosing colors for projects to go in my books, I try to pick colors that go together in individual projects and also to use a variety of colors among the projects in the book, so while I love blue and green I make sure to throw in orange and yellow as well, for example.

When knitting projects for myself I’m usually using stash so whatever I have is good enough. Or if I do happen to be buying yarn for a project, it’s usually more about the texture or fiber content of the yarn first, then choosing a color I like, rather than having a color in mind then finding a yarn with that in its line.

Marie at Olive Knits was looking for the perfect green yarn to replace a store bought sweater, and she found that picking out exactly the right shade was trickier than she expected.

She wrote a blog post full of tips for finding the right yarn when you’re looking for a particular color.

I think the hardest part of this these days is that we tend to do so much online shopping for yarn, either because we don’t have a local yarn store, we can’t get what we want locally or we want to support independent makers who live elsewhere. And if you’ve ever received yarn that isn’t quite the color you were expecting you know what I’m talking about.

One of her tips, then, is to look at a color swatch for the yarn you’re thinking about buying on every monitor or device you have available because it probably will look different on different screens (and maybe different still in person, and under different lighting conditions, or if you use it in a project with other colors…).

Check out her post for more tips on finding the right color for your project.

[Photo: Olive Knits.]