The Elvish Leaves

If I had to describe all of my old dishcloths I think dingy and icky would top the list. If beautiful was brought up (even when they were new) I would laugh at you.

So it is great to be a knitter. My dishcloths can now be described as beautiful. Just check out this beauty. I think it is wonderful to be in control of not just the pattern but the color as well. I can make my cloths exactly what I want and not be limited by the generic, boring selection of standard dishcloths at the store.

Knitting this up was great. It was definitely one of those patterns that are really fun to watch come to life row by row. It went by very quickly too. It isn't the kind of pattern that is easily memorized, but it is a well written pattern that is very easy to get the hang of.

Like I mentioned above. I think this cloth is so pretty. This pattern didn't need any modification at all. The designer knew just when to start the pattern and when to end it. I think it is so lovely.

 

I think the amount of eyelets is perfect. There are just enough to help define the pattern and to help the cloth dry quickly without going overboard with them. The size is also great. Unwashed it is 8" square. I'm not sure if it's just the yarn or a combination of how I wash it, but the cotton I use shrinks a full inch both ways. So after washing this is about 7" square, which is actually a good size for me.

Overall I love this cloth. The knitting is great, it looks really beautiful, and it works wonderfully as a dishcloth. I would definitely recommend putting this cloth in your collection.

Something Simple

For this week's cloth I originally started out with a different pattern. It didn't work out. After frogging once, then after accidently being ripped out so badly I needed to frog it again, I decided that pattern could wait. I needed something quick and easy to make myself feel better.

After a little searching I knew this cloth would do very nicely. I was not disappointed.

This of course had a very easy to memorize pattern. It employs psso which I really like as a decrease. I had this cloth completely knit up after just a couple of old episodes of Mythbusters.  

One thing to note about this pattern is that it does not include a border. That is something that needs to be calculated in when you start knitting. I wanted this to be a bit bigger than some of my other cloths and so I used size 8 needles (5.0 mm). I cast on 31 stitches for the pattern and added 4 stitches on each side for a border for a total of 39 stitches. After washing (this cotton shrinks a lot) this wound up being a little over 8 inches square.

Like I said earlier, this cloth fit the ticket for being quick and easy. It was a good, almost mindless knit. It was a nicer little refresher after doing several rather complicated projects ( most of which were not cloths).

I do like the simple eyelets that this cloth has. However, I do think it is a tiny bit plain. But because of that, I think this would be a really great project for a beginner knitter.

 
Overall I like this cloth. It is definitely the thing to knit if you are looking for something simple and easy.

Smocking

What a busy holiday season. It was truly wonderful, but busy. I did manage to do a little bit of knitting however. In between all of the many holiday parties we went to I was able to spend small moments working on this.

After seeing this cloth pattern I immediately wanted to knit it. A solid, easy looking cloth but with a little something special. I have done a little bit of smock knitting and so I knew I could do this. In fact anybody can make this. Even though it looks complicated, trust me. It is not. All it involves is slipping stitches with the yarn held in front then bringing the yarn back around for a knit stitch.

After knitting about half of the cloth I no longer needed to look at the pattern at all. So yes, it is a very easy 8 row repeat. Even after leaving it for several days all I had to do was to look at where the smocking started on the row before and keep going without checking the pattern.

I do have to admit that even though it was an easy knit and the finished product is rather lovely, I didn't quite love the actual knitting. It felt like it took forever to knit, although I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact I never had a chance to sit down and just knit. Short stolen moments were all I had for this cloth. I think I'll have to give myself an evening to knit another one because I do think this cloth is very deserving to be in a collection of cloths.

I do really love the look of this washcloth. I think it falls under the category of being rather masculine, so it would make a great gift for any guy in your life. Which is actually really great because honestly, it is really hard to find a pattern that is masculine but not just a basic (usually boring) product.

This cloth is going to be used as a washcloth. I may be weird, but I tend to like using "lacey" cloths for dishcloths, and "whole" cloths as washcloths. This one is going in my the master bathroom. It's something my husband will really like.

Overall, I would say that if you are considering knitting this: Do it. It isn't particularly hard, and the end product is definitely worth it.

The First Cloth

I originally knit this for my mother after seeing that her dishcloths were falling apart. She had crocheted a bunch of them about 10 years ago. Well, they are currently strings being held together by the occasional loop and knot. They obviously got used a lot. So of course new dishcloths were in order.

Ravelry.com is my go to site to find patterns for pretty much everything. This was no exception. After a little bit of searching, I spied this little beauty. I immediately dug into my stash and got started.

Let me tell you, I love this pattern. It is a super easy to memorize 4 row repeat. After looking at the pattern for 1 cloth, I made 3 more without ever looking at the pattern again. So like I said, super easy.
It isn't tedious or fiddly in any way. So I would have to say that the actual knitting of this dishcloth ranks really high.

The look of the cloth is also a winner in my book. I like how there are panels of stockinet and then the lacey panels. The tension doesn't change from the stockinet to the lace so that the cloth stays pretty square and flat. No wonky shapes here. I will admit that they are not perfectly square. Especially since I don't really see the point in blocking them. They are dishcloths after all.

 

 





As far as using these goes they work really well (duh). The tension is not too tight. They are not too stiff of a fabric as far as worsted weight cotton yarn goes. I also don't like when a cloth is too lacey with tons of huge holes. But since these are simple small eyelets that is not an issue at all.  

 

Overall I have to admit that I love this cloth. I think that they are great for everyday use, but pretty enough to make as gifts. 

So It Begins...

This blog is going to be all about finding the perfect knit (or even perhaps crochet) wash cloth. When I got married a little over 5 years ago I was gifted many washcloths and dishcloths. However, after so much use, they are starting to fall apart.

Because I now know how to knit (that was something I didn't learn to do until after getting married) I decided that instead of buying more, I will knit replacements. I plan on knitting up different patterns of cloths and then will review each cloth based on the actual knitting and how well it works as a cloth. I will be using these as both washcloths and dishcloths. (I do plan on separating them, a single cloth won't be used for both.)

Please join me in my quest to find the perfect washcloth.