Pieced Crochet Dishcloth/Washcloth

This crazy, bright dishcloth/washcloth is created by piecing together 4 mitered squares. It is kind of a sil-ily complicated pattern for a dishcloth with all the yarn changes and pieces, but it's fun to crochet and makes for a fun finished dishcloth. Though mine is in rainbow colors, you can make it in any amount of colors you want. I have another example of a different one I've made in Step 2 to give you an idea of what you can do.

Instructable 275

Supplies:

• Crochet Hook F/5 3.75mm - or something similar size
• Smaller Crochet Hook or Yarn Needle to hid tails
• Yarn in your colors of choice - I used:
  • Red - Lily Sugar n'Cream
  • Hot Orange - Lily Sugar n'Cream
  • Vanilla Bouquet - Lily Sugar n'Cream Scents
  • Vintage Green - Crafter's Secret Cotton
  • Mod Blue - Lily Sugar n'Cream
  • Lavender - Red Heart Scrubby Smoothie
  • White - Lily Sugar n' Cream
• Scissors

To make this, you will need to know the following crochet techniques:

• Single Crochet - sc
• Half Double Crochet - hdc
• Chain - ch
• Slip Stitch
• Zipper Join - I try to explain this and link to a blog post where I learned it.

TL:DR I changed the metered square pattern to be more square for me.

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This was my first experience with a mitered square. I'm not sure if it is just the way the mitered square works out, or if I crochet too tight (well I do crochet too tight but I'm not sure if that is the problem here or not) but my mitered square would fan out and not be a 90 degree square as I wanted. This wasn't going to work for what I wanted to accomplish.

I started messing around in different ways to get the square more square. In the end, I found that if I added half double crochets I could get it to go out better. I don't necessarily think my square is 100% perfect, but it is working better than my first one so I'll share how I created it :) I also found that I needed to do every other row the same, so first you have single crochets, then the next row incorporates 3 half double crochets, then back to single crochets, then back to half double crochets, etc. Lastly, I decided to alternate first single crochet and second half double crochets because I wanted the last row to be a half double crochet. So, if you decide to do more or fewer rows, I recommend planning it so the last row is a half double crochet row.

If my square doesn't work out, try the traditional mitered square to see if that works better.

The first image above shows the traditional Mitered Square and then my altered Mitered Square.

The second image shows my first attempt at this dishcloth using the traditional mitered square. It might be hard to tell, but the squares all fan out so it throws the whole thing off a bit and won't lay flat.

[In case you can tell, for the solid color squares above I also continued with single crochets around the two exposed edges before connecting them and putting on the border. I can't do this with a multicolored mitered square but it works for one that is all one color.]

I'm going to mention color changes, but just continue as normal if you are doing one color or change whenever you want to if you are doing multiple colors. There will be 12 total rows, so I did 2 rows of each color, except for the first and last colors; I did 3 rows of the first and 1 of the last. I did this because the purple kind of got lost because it's not many stitches so I added a row and to keep things even; I removed a red row from the end since I would be connecting the squares with red anyway.

For every color change, leave a tail of at least a couple inches.

The Pattern for Altered Mitered Square:

Chain 2 (in the first color; PURPLE)

1. 3sc in 2nd chain from hook (the first chain) [3]
2. Ch1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc [5]
3. Ch1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, 3sc in 1 stitch, sc, sc [7] If you are going to switch colors, I recommend not finishing the last stitch, instead pull through the new color as shown in the 5th image above. This will be the same for every row that comes before the new color.
4. (In new color; BLUE) Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc [9]
5. Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, 3sc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc [11]
6. (In new color; GREEN) Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [13]
7. Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3sc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [15]
8. (In new color; YELLOW) Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [17]
9. Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3sc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [19]
10. (In new color; ORANGE) Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [21]
11. Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3sc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc [23]
12. (In new color; RED) Ch 1, sc in 2nd chain from hook, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, 3hdc in 1 stitch, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc, sc sc, [25]

For the last stitch of the last row (RED) make sure you cut the yarn, leaving a tail, and then pull the string through so you have that last loop. You will need that for stitching the squares together (show in last image above).

Now, to get all those tails out of the way, we are going to start hiding them (weaving them in) but not cutting them. I recommend that you wait until you are all done with the whole dishcloth before trimming because I found things got pulled loose sometimes especially if my tail was too short, and it was just better to leave them long so I could pull them tight if I needed to later.

To hid my ends, I used a smaller crochet hook and tried to weave it through 3-5 stitches to get it really in there. I had the most trouble with purple because everything was closer and tighter down there.

Once I had them all in, I did trim them down so they wouldn't get in the way, but I made sure I could still grab the tails if I needed to.

Just wanted to give you a look at my finished squares. You can mess around with the order you put them in, but you need the nice stitches in order to attach them the way I did.

Next step.

You can attach your squares any way you want. I decided to use the Zipper Method that I learned from Look At What I Made.

I'll try to give a brief explanation of what I did, but you can also head over to their blog for their description.

1. Start by putting a slip stitch on your hook in the last color you did (RED).
2. Line up two squares as shown in the first image.
3. Stick the hook through the back (right hand) loop on the square on the left.
4. Stich the hook through the back (left hand) loop on the square on the right.
5. With your working yarn behind the stitches, bring it around the hook and bring that loop through both stitches, you are doing a basic slip stitch.
6. Continue doing slip stitches through the back loops until you get to the very middle of the square point (you should have 13 stitches).
7. Take your other two squares and line them up so the red corner goes towards the middle as shown.
8. Go through the back loops of the 2 very center stitches of the red. If it helps, count from the edge until you get to 13 and that's where you want to start.
9. Continue until you reach the end.
10. I cut my yarn and then left the tail hanging for now.

Here is where it gets a little tricky, we need to now stitch perpendicular. [next step]

This gets a little hard to explain. If you need some clarification please let me know and I'll do my best. I actually couldn't tell what Look At What I Made did here so I just guessed and went with what worked for me.

1. Put a slip stitch on your hook in the same color.
2. (Keep your working yarn in back.) Bring the squares together and do the same thing as above.
3. Continue working towards the center (it can get a little difficult, but just keep that working yarn in the back).
4. When you get to the center stitch that you stitched through before, again work through the back loops (it will be tight).
5. Keep your working yarn in back and bring your hook over the center and do a slip stitch into the center loops of the other two squares.
6. Now continue joining back loops all the way to the end.
7. Cut the yarn and pull it through the last loo.

You can now hide those ends to get them out of the way, but again, don't cut them all the way off yet.

You are going to want a border so the dishcloth doesn't look wonky, so we are going to do that now.

I decided to go with white but use whatever color you want.

Slip stitch into the corner and chain 1.

Now start going around with single crochets making sure you do 3 in each corner.

When it came to where I joined the squares (4th image), I did one single crochet on each side of it. The important thing is you keep it even going around the square so it doesn't bunch or pull tight.

I went around doing a second border row.

[For something different, you can do one or both of these rows in half double crochet stitches instead of single crochet. You may need to do 4 stitches in the corner if you do that.]

Finish up and hide your ends.

You can now cut off all your tails!

You did it! It probably took a while and you may have started going insane hiding all those tails, but isn't it beautiful!

The back looks different than the front. Not as nice, but not bad either.

Please share if you make this. I'd love to see how yours turns out and what color combinations you decide to do :)