Monday Project - Crocheted Dishcloths

Remember a couple of Mondays ago when I showed you the cotton yarn I dyed?  I've been making dishcloths - lots and lots of dishcloths!  Most are for a housewarming gift, but a few are for me.  I developed this pattern after making dishcloths for several years and not finding the perfect one - just parts of some patterns I really liked.  These are good scrubbers and you can make them in all sorts of colors that aren't available in ready made dishcloths.  Kitchens deserve to have an artful look, too!

I've been using Sugar and Cream and found that it keeps shrinking for several washings.  So if you begin with a nice sized dishcloth, by the time you've washed it three or four times you have a teeny, tiny little cloth.  I start out really big now and that seems to help.

Materials List:
*cotton worsted weight yarn - I use Sugar and Cream, Peaches and Cream, or Lion's cotton
*G crochet hook

If you are new to crochet or a bit rusty, Lion's Brand has some good videos on their website.

1.  Chain 41.
2.  Single crochet in second chain from hook and in each chain across.  40 stitches.
3.  Chain 3 and turn.  Double crochet in next stitch, *skip a stitch, 2 double crochet in following stitch.  Repeat from * to end of row.
4.  Chain 1 and turn.  Double crochet in each stitch across.
5.  Repeat rows 3 and 4 until you have a square, ending with a row 4.

6.  Edging:  Chain 3 and do not turn.  3 double crochet in corner, make double crochet stitches evenly down the side, 3 double crochet in corner, double crochet in each base chain across, 3 double crochet in corner, make double crochet stitches evenly up the next side, double crochet in each stitch across the top.
7.  Join to top of chain 3 stitch and finish off.



For those of you who like visual patterns, I made one that shows the stitches, but not in actual size.  I don't have a crochet design program and drawing out 40 stitch symbols per row sounded a little tedious!  I think it gives enough information, though.

My salmon dyed yarn turned into this dishcloth:

There was more variegated purple - it made one whole dishcloth and stripes/edging for another one.

If you want a really special housewarming, wedding, whatever gift, add some dyed to match or coordinated kitchen towels using the dye techniques from this past post.  My white waffle weave cotton towels came from Discount Embroidery Blanks.  I used Robin's Egg blue with a little bit of turquoise, Coral Pink, and Lemon Yellow Procion Dye from Dharma Trading Company.

Happy Creating!  Deborah