dishrag

I've never liked dishrags, they are too big. I've always liked more sponge-size cleaning aids. At the same time I hate the sour/nasty/bacterial build-up inevitable in a sponge. I was looking at a website (down---to---earth.blogspot.com) and she was knitting (idiot easy!) cotton dishrags. They reminded me of my grandfather knitting the exact same type of dishrags after his stroke, in order to get control of his hands. So I was thinking how nice it would be to make my own dishrags and DUH it occurred to me to make them smaller. I LOVE THEM! I have a pile of them and can either throw them in the wash after use or hang them up to dry. AND they are 100% cotton so they'll just get thrown in the compost eventually. They are garter stitch, so it is a very bumpy surface for scrubbing. They work really really good.

Directions for making dishrags.
Get some 100% cotton yarn (Cotton and Cream is at Walmart, and it's cheap and it works perfectly). Using a set of #8 knitting needles (or #7 or #9), cast on one. Turn. Knit in the front and back of that stitch. Turn. Knit one, knit in the front and back of the next stitch, knit to the end of the row. Turn. Continue to K1, K in fr and back, k to end until it is as big as you want, I knit to approximately 3 inches (which for me was 20 stitches). Once it is as big as you want it to be start the decreasing, as follows- Knit one, knit two together, knit to the end of the row. Continue doing this until you only have one stitch left, then bind off. You're DONE! This is definately beginner's knitting, they churn out really fast.