Homemade Dish Sponges

In my seemingly never-ending quest to reduce my footprint on the earth, I realized how many disposable dish sponges I use on a monthly basis hand washing my dishes. I really can't stand using a dish cloth. They just seem to flop around and get water everywhere. Necessity being the mother of invention, here you go. An 18 pack of washcloths for less than $4, and these things last just about forever.

The washcloths should be pre-washed and dried for any shrinkage or dye bleeding. Fold a cloth in half and sew around the 3 open edges. I use a long stitch since these are kind of thick and a smaller stitch didn't seem to work well. This also seemed like a great project for using up all of my bobbins of random thread.

Fold 1/3 over and stitch down top to bottom. This will prevent the cloth from moving inside while using and washing.

Fold over the last 1/3 and zigzag around the 3 non-fold edges. I use a wide zigzag with a long stitch length.

Viola! Finished sponge.They work great, but they do take a while to dry. I throw them in the wash when I do my regular towels and then hang them up to finish drying.