Lately I’ve been “in between” crochet projects- nothing huge (that I can show you) to work on, and so I keep alternating between big things (like the Ripple Blanket) and small, instant gratification things. And so I turned to my stash of Lion Cotton, from which I’ve been knitting washcloths, and thought I’d make some tawashi to go with it. If you’ve never heard of tawashi, they are cute little dish scrubbies to knit or crochet. I like to use mine to wipe the counter and dust, too.  I’ve crocheted 9 tawashi over the last couple of weeks using my own pattern from Craftstylish (here it is on Ravelry, too).

It’s fun to play with the colors for this pattern, since I have quite a few different cottons in my stash. Although, as far as stashbusting goes, let’s just say you’d have to crochet a heck of a lot of these before you bust much stash. But- since you can toss these in the wash (unline a sponge), it’s good to have a few around anyway.

After making so many of these I have a few suggestions/additions to my pattern.

*For Lion Cotton (Or Sugar’n'Cream) switch to a size H hook and ch 17 or 19 stitches to start (reducing the dc in each row to 6 or 8), to get a smaller or slightly smaller tawashi, respectively. I also only crocheted 21 rows instead of 24.
*Add a ch-15 hanging loop at the beginning of one row (before you make the first sc)- this will help you hang it up to dry if you use it often.
*Leave the first end long (to sew up one end of the tawashi) and the last end very long (to sew up the side and other end of the tawashi)– you can crochet over all of the other ends as you go to save some time. You don’t need to sew the top gathering point to the bottom one, either– you can, but it will lie flat without that step and it gives you the option of using it as shown above, which might be good for a bath scrubber.

These are addictive to make because there are quick. And of course there are lots other cute and fun tawashi patterns to knit or crochet out there, so have fun with it! I figure I’ll stack a few together with some nice dish soap and have a start on holiday gifts. If you end up making a tawashi or two, I’d love to see a photo–whether on Ravelry, Craftstylish, or via a link in the comments! Get hooking.