Easy Crocheted Dishcloth

I bought some Bubble Creative yarn on a whim recently. I guess the sparkliness of it attracted me to start with! I discovered that it was generally used to make dishcloths, which I was delighted with as I would love to be more ecological in the kitchen. I always feel terrible about throwing out the kitchen foam sponges. I figured that using this yarn I could make my own re-washable ones! I decided to make a dishcloth with the Bubble yarn on one side and a softer cotton on the other to make two different textures for washing the dishes. Sometimes, with delicate dishes, you don't want to be scouring them with anything rough.

I am not going to do a step by step guide to how to crochet, as if you do a search on Instructables, there are already a whole heap of great tutorials out there, such as this one by tldudenhoeffer . I will give you the basic instructions on how to make the dishcloth, and the rest is up to your creativity, as in the end, you can crochet just about any kind of stitch you like, and any kind of shape. Square shaped is just easier!

1 crochet hook. I used a 4.5 mm one.

1 or 2 balls of 8/4 cotton yarn, and/or "creative bubble" polyester yarn.

1 darning needle

Scissors

Take a 4.5 mm crochet hook and cast on a stitch using Bubble Creative yarn, then crochet a chain 20 stitches long.

Working into each stitch of your chain, starting from the 2nd stitch in, double crochet along the row, then chain two stitches.

Double crochet for 10 rows and then cast off.

Take the ball of 8/4 cotton yarn. I found that to have about the same size square as I had made for the Bubble Creative yarn, I needed to chain 15 stitches.

Double crochet just like you did for the first square until it is about the same size as the first one.

Use the darning needle to sew in the ends.

Put the squares one on top of the other, with the crochet direction of one square at 90 degrees to the other. This stops the dishcloth from being too elastic and stretchy.

You can either sew or crochet the squares together. To crochet, start at one corner and push the hook through the two squares. Make a loop stitch with the yarn, put it on the end of the hook and pull it through. then, loop the yarn around the hook and pull it through your original loop.

Crochet along the sides, making the stitches as close together as possible. At the corners, crochet at least two times into one corner hole.

If you like, you can crochet a hanging loop right onto the dishcloth. If you want to skip this step, go right ahead. You can always thread a piece of ribbon or string through the corner and tie it in a knot to make a hanging loop.

At one corner, chain 16 stitches. fold the chain in half. Push your hook with the stitch on it through the hole you started the chain from. Loop the yarn around the hook, pull it back through the hole. Now you will have two stitches on the hook. Loop the yarn around the hook again and then draw it through the two stitches.

Then carry on closing the squares with crochet stitches as before.