My mom taught me to knit when I was 7 years old and my grandma taught me to crochet when I was about 10. It’s always been something that’s been a part of my life and something I’m so grateful for. The other day, my mom showed me a set of dishcloths that she’d knit and it got me thinking. There is a simple beauty in knitting dishcloths.
I think most experienced knitters forget the benefits of knitting dishcloths. They give you the opportunity to put your brain on pause and just knit for simple enjoyment. They knit up quickly and are a great hostess gift. You can be creative with the patterns or keep it simple or pick out a colourful yarn to give you a boost in the kitchen when doing dishes. For a beginner knitter, they are great because you can practice making without having to worry about tension and gauge. It lets you concentrate on figuring out the motions, all the while creating something useful.
Here are close ups of the dishcloths she made. They are all 9.5″ square, as she loves a larger dishcloth. She cast on 47 stitches with 5mm needles and worsted weight dishcloth cotton. She did 16 repeats of the 4 row repeat for a total of 64 rows and then cast off. When choosing the stitch patterns from the stitch dictionary, she looked for patterns with a mix of knit and purl stitch and ones that didn’t have any increases or decreases in them, to avoid holes in the fabric of the cloth. Here are the patterns she used.
Ridged Rib (close up, pictured above)
Rows 1 & 2 – Knit
Row 3 (RS) – P1, *K1, P1; repeat from * to the end
Row 4 – K1, *P1, K1; repeat from * to end.
Repeat these four rows
Basket Weave (close up, pictured above)
Rows 1 (RS) and 3 – Knit
Row 2 – *K3, P1; repeat from * to last 3 sts, K3
Row 4 – K1, *P1, K3; repeat from * to last 2 sts, P1, K1
Repeat these four rows
Interrupted Rib (close up, pictured above)
Row 1 (RS) – P1, *K1, P1; repeat from * to end
Row 2 – K1, *P1, K1; repeat from * to end
Row 3 – Purl
Row 4 – Knit
Repeat these four rows
Happy Knitting
~Katrina
