In the past few months, I made a bunch of dishcloths for our church's Mother's Day gifts. I decided I wanted to make some scrubbies to go with them.
I have been reading into this, and apparently acrylic yarn is scratchy enough to compete with nylon netting for a scrubbie. I've tried it in my own kitchen with surprisingly good results. Another older friend of mine agreed to test it out for me, too, and reported that the acrylic scrubbie worked as well as the nylon one I had made for her last year that she loved so much.
What does that mean? No more killing my fingers working with nylon netting or tulle!
So I went searching for just the right pattern. I saw (and tried) a crochet pattern for a sponge alternative, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. So I decided to take the concept and make my own knit pattern. Here are two variations I came up with:
The Ribbed Sponge (left)
Materials
US 8 knitting needles, set of double-pointed or 40" circular (I magic-looped these.)
worsted weight acrylic yarn (or cotton, if you prefer), approx. 10 grams
Gauge
5 sts/inch, 7 rnds/inch in stockinette
Instructions
Using Judy's Magic Cast-On, cast on 18 sts onto each needle (for a total of 36 sts).
Knit for 7 rounds.
Pattern Rounds:
Rnd 1: Purl.
Rnds 2-3: Knit.
Work pattern rounds a total of 5 times.
Purl 1 round.
Knit 7 rounds.
Graft with kitchener stitch or a 3-needle bind-off.
The Waffle Sponge (right)
Materials
US 8 knitting needles, set of double-pointed or 40" circular (I magic-looped these.)
worsted weight acrylic yarn (or cotton, if you prefer), approx. 10 grams
Gauge
5 sts/inch, 7 rnds/inch in stockinette
Instructions
Using Judy's Magic Cast-On, cast on 16 sts onto each needle (for a total of 32 sts).
Knit for 5 rounds.
Pattern Rounds:
Rnd 1: Purl
Rnds 2-4: (k2, p2) around
Repeat pattern rounds a total of 4 times.
Purl 1 round.
Knit 5 rounds.
I did a 3-needle bind-off on this one, but you could also graft it with the kitchener stitch.
Both of these turn out around 3x4", so they fit comfortably in my hand.
You could come up with an endless number of variations on this just by changing the pattern stitch in the middle. If I play around with any more, I'll be sure to share my results.
1 comments:
What a neat idea for Mother's Day. This is my first year as a Pastor's wife on Mother's Day and I have been praying and pondering what to do.
This church has long standing traditions and we have only been there 6 months so I am trying to kind of go with the flow and not make changes. But I'd like to gift them something special.
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