Eloomanator Dishcloths
25 Jul
You know you’re going through a tough spell when you look at everything in your Ravelry queue and think “bleh.” The last half of June was like that. If it involved two sticks and some string, I wanted no part of it.
The Manic Purl is one of my favorite podcasts, and its host, Chrissy, went through something similar earlier this year. She cured her lack of mojo by knitting the eLoomanator’s Diagonal Knit Dishcloth, and since it helped her I thought I’d give it a go.
Before this I had never knit dishcloths before, and I decided to make it an entirely new experience by knitting them out of fibers I had never used – hemp and cotton. And since I knew I wouldn’t be keeping these, I chose colors that would go well with my parents’ kitchen.
This was knit out of Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton in Walnut. I enjoyed knitting with cotton a lot more than I thought I would – I was thinking it would have no give and be really stringy, but this cotton is like boucle so there were no plies. I used size 8 needles, and didn’t knit as many repeats of the middle section as the pattern called for because it was already quite large.
The second dishcloth was knit out of Hemp for Knitting AllHemp6 in Barn Red. Hemp is very course, similar to linen, but I didn’t have any problem with it hurting my hands. The AllHemp6 is more of a sport weight, so I used a size 4 needles, and added about 20 extra repeats. I really enjoyed knitting with hemp, and in the future will probably look for other one skein projects where I can use hemp.
I haven’t given these to my Mom yet, and probably won’t until she gets her new kitchen cabinets installed. But considering the cabinets have been sitting in my Dad’s shop since late last year, who knows when that will be!
Those are quite classy, Kate. Usually the dishcloth patterns I see are either really plain or I dunno, have a Transformer on them.
Very nice! I’ve knit a lot of cotton, but not hemp yet. And I’m knitting with linen now, but it’s a linen/merino blend. Not too bad on the hands!
Very pretty & probably something even I could make!
Those are really great. I have a cellphone case made from Hemp for Knitting. It was made for me 3 cellphones ago & is still going strong & getting softer. I actually keep my iPod Touch in it now.
I’m glad my dishcloth helped you get your mojo back!
Do you block your dishcloths?? If so How??
Kathy
>^..^<