Dish Cloths

Another very nice and busy weekend here at the farm. Daisy went to my sister’s for the weekend. Dick and I were long overdue for some “us” time.

We had a nice quiet dinner the first night and went to bed early to catch up on some much needed sleep and give Dick’s wrist a rest. He has come down with tendinitis and is wearing a brace for a couple of weeks.

The following day we went to the fair and spent the day watching the horse pulling and tractor pulls. I brought lunch with us in my favorite woven picnic basket and we sat on the bench-ate lunch and watched the crowds walk by and talked.

The Fairy Rose in the garden this morning

Yesterday we were up early to cook breakfast at the Masonic Lodge. Every month we volunteer time for their public breakfast, cooking, cleaning, serving, what ever needs to be done. I always bring something for the bake sale and spend some time watching the table and selling tickets so the regular woman can eat breakfast with her husband. It’s always the same group of people-husbands & wives, every one gets along well and it’s so nice to see so many “working” marriages in action.

We went to a birthday party/cookout and visited with another large group of friends. The gas grill caught on fire from the grease and I never saw so many retired/current fire fighters jump into action than at that moment. (all but 2 men are/were on the fire departments, the other 2 are retired State Troopers.) Quite amusing to me yet reassuring. In the end the ladies got it put out with some good old baking soda but the burgers were all casualties.

In keeping with custom (mine, I always bring something when visiting) I brought the hostess a bar of the loofa soap wrapped in a wax sandwich bag and a ribbon. Tied on the outside a copy of the dishcloth pattern I am currently trying out.

I was given the nicest, dish cloth knit from cotton yarn. We got on the subject of the dish cloths and I was quite surprised to find out that they are very popular in all but 2 of the kitchens. There were 7 ladies, so 5 out of 7 kitchens were making and using them.

I had to ask if they were just starting to use them or had they for quite sometime. Wondering to myself if it was part of the new “green” or “simple living” fad current in this country. To my surprise most had always used them and a few were given a cotton dish cloth to try and have been using them since. Keep in mind I was the youngest there, the other ladies were from 50ish to 70ish.

They liked them for all the reasons I did. That they worked well on everything from dishes to wiping down every surface in the house. They liked that they could toss them into the laundry after a couple of days and always have a clean one handy. They liked that the cloths went through stages of uses, first in the kitchen then the bathroom, the cleaning bucket on down to the compost.

I brought home with me a pattern to knit that is very basic and the one this particular woman likes best. She likes that is tighter knit than some of them and gives her good “scrubbing”.

Monarda (Bee Balm) A double decker, mine sometimes grow this way.

 

Dish Cloth-Cynthia’s Pattern

I’m going to call it this so I can remember where it came from. I am sure it’s not an original pattern but basic knitting.

• Size 6 needles
• 2 strand cotton yarn

Cast on 37 stitches

First 3 rows: knit across

 

*Row 4: knit across

*Row 5 knit 3 pearl across to last 3 stitches, knit 3

 

Repeat rows 4 & 5 until you have the size you like.

knit the last 3 rows and bind off.

 

Seems pretty simple and from what I saw a good project to use up small balls of yarn left over from another project. Her’s were just that and the stripes made it very pretty.

Another thing I noticed about her’s was the fact that they weren’t square in size. They were rectangle in shape, a smaller size. They were also made from thinner yarn. In fact the smaller crochet cotton. I have been testing this same thing out in my own kitchen. I don’t like my dish cloths so large and bulky. The large ones are hard to wring out and use on smaller item like juice glasses or get into the mason jars.

I know it sounds like this conversation went on for hours but in fact it didn’t. These are just my observations. This is something I always do, sit back and listen and notice what others are doing around their homes that is working for them.

If you have a favorite dish cloth pattern that is easy and less bulky you would like to share I would love to try it out.

Cone Flower, growing taller than I am. Is this normal?

 

Hope your weekend went as well as mine did.

Karyn