Such Sweet Hands

Making a simple useful cloth is one of my favorite things to make in my personal crochet time. I wish to cover my friends and loved ones in blankets and sweaters and toys made by hand, but I simply don’t have the time. I can give anyone I think might enjoy it a pretty little square of handmade cloth to use as a washcloth or a hot pad for holding a hot bowl of soup. Something small and simple to let someone know I want to contribute something comforting, useful, and pretty to her life. . .

I use mine for holding tea mugs and bowls of soup. A good friend recently told me she uses one (the purple one in this photo, to be exact) as a washcloth when she bathes her daughter. She says it’s soft and sturdy and everything you need for a baby’s bath. I feel humbled that this sweet little cloth is an integral part of her daughter’s bath time.

It feels good to sit down and make something so useful and simple. They’re easy to whip up too! I like to bundle the cloth with something else, a package of tea, a fancy soap, etc. You don’t even need gift wrap, just a string or ribbon to tie it up with.

I often use Blue Sky Alpaca Cottons (Dyed or Organic) and Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille. Anything that can stand up to washing and repeated use, as well as creates a nice, useful fabric. If you’re making a washcloth I suggest working with cotton, I bet hemp might be nice for an exfoliating cloth. The texture is part of what makes this useful cloth as sweet as it is useful. Bobbles, stitch patterns full of mixed stitches, anything that creates a crunchy, yummy texture will work. With just a smidge of planning you can pull double duty trying out new stitch patterns and making a useful cloth.

You never know whose daily ritual (be it bath time or tea time) your cloth could become a part of.

I’m constantly amused at how the granny afghan is a staple for setting a cozy, middle American household scene in film and television. Teaching crochet also kept me in with grannies. It doesn’t matter what kind of rep the grannies have had, people never stopped wanting to learn how to make this square. As much as it’s tackier uses has scared others from crochet, it has also continued to bring people to crochet.

So far I’ve only made bags using grannies. And now I have a vision, a blankie for my office. I can see it draped across my chair. It will keep me warm, it will brighten my room. It will clear at least two shelf cubbies worth of yarn! Maybe?

I’ve a ton of Organic and Dyed Cotton from Blue Sky Alpacas as well as quite a bit of Cotton Chenille from Crystal Palace. You may not know this, but these two yarns play beautifully with each other. It’s some kind of interyarncompanyspecies serendipity. This first little square starts off with dyed cotton, the 2nd round is cotton chenille, and the 3rd is organic cotton. Don’t they look made for each other? So I’ve piled up the yarns, I’ve made a few little squarelets, and I’m envisioning the finished blanket.

Sometimes I just need to see a swatch in every possible way.  I need to work out the kinks, make sure the combination of stitches not only looks good far away, but close up too.  Sometimes it’s a matter of making sure the lines created by the stitch pattern are playing out in a way that just feels right.  (At this point when I’m zoning out on a swatch, stitches really aren’t stitches anymore, I might call them legs, rays, petals, whatever a stitch or a group of stitches is supposed to look like.)  In this case, to search for the reason why the pattern didn’t feel right, I examined the swatch against a lamp.  Seeing the positive and negative space helped me suss out how to spread the legs of a row out in a more graceful manner.

Don’t mind me, just been doodling in photoshop…
The crochet in the image: the bottom corner of a large swatch made for a capelet destined for Crochet Today.

I greet you on this Tuesday with a brief post and a swatch photo!

I must say, swatching with Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe is so yummy. It’s a great yarn for showing stitch definition. I spent several evenings on the couch playing at finding various fun and simple stitch combos that build on each other to make simple strips of crocheted fabric. Exactly how to use these strips? I’ve got some schemes, but nothing certain beyond skinny scarves and draping them in my office for decoration. I will keep you posted though because there’s something to be said for these sorts of projects, they’re fun and fly from your fingers…