Kitschy Kitschy Ya Ya Da Da

Voulez-Vouz Do Dishes avec Moi?

My mother guffawed when I told her I was knitting these dishcloths for my friends. Absolutely lost it. See, I used to mock her senseless when I’d see her knitting these things. “Mom. You are knitting stuff to wash dishes with? Why don’t you go buy sponges like every other sensible person?”

“These work best,” she’d say, knitting away happily.

Perhaps she was happy because she knew that someday I’d come crawling to her, asking for the pattern. Thing is, these kitschy dishcloths kick ass for washing dishes. Something about the little nubs just works. They last forever, and if you don’t count the time spent making them, are practically free. And so eventually I ate my humble pie, and she showed me how to make them. Knit on the diagonal with size 9 needles with cotton Sugar ‘n Cream yarn, these dishcloths are also how I learned how to increase. I found the yarn in some shocking colors, and so I decided that they would make funny gifts for my friends.

Still I wasn’t quite satisfied with the gift. A dishcloth? Then I remembered that I had this really creepy photo of a refrigerator in the woods that I’d taken sometime in the mid-nineties. I had planned on making the refrigerator into magnets for months, I’d even ordered smallish prints, but I hadn’t done it yet. So why not give them a scary refrigerator magnet too? Hee hee.

The True Lady Marmalade
But still, something was missing. I’m a feminist, and I didn’t just want to give something for my friends’ kitchens. I was staring at all this leftover cotton yarn when a wicked grin passed over my face. If someone really wanted to go all Lady Marmalade, what would she need?

I’m sure I’m not the first person to knit these, but I laughed the entire time. Here, with the scary refrigerator magnet is a little cozy for… Holds two, snug as a bug. Knit on size 8 needles with the same yarn. I was going to add a button, but does one really want to fiddle with yet another one of those?