I can't seem to stop...

After discovering the moss-stitch granny square pattern for making dishcloths, I've been a bit obsessed with making them.

Last week, I admitted to my perfectionistic tendency of going to the effort to make the colors go round and round in an attractive order, instead of just letting the colors land (and worse, pool) where they may when using variegated or striped yarn.  Which meant a lot of snipping and magic-knotting to make that happen.  

Why, I asked myself, am I not diving into all my colorful scraps of cotton yarn for this?  

So, I did!  

And I fell even more in love with making these crazy cloths.

So much so, that for the last two weeks, I've completely abandoned any other creative endeavor.  

I don't imagine my readers will be as endlessly amused with these cloths as long as I may be amused making them, so this might (maybe...  I don't know...) be the last post where I show these.

Okay, maybe not...

Here, again, is the tutorial I used for the first one:

After making one (maybe two) cloths, the tutorial will be unnecessary.  In fact, the stitch marker suggested at the beginning is unnecessary in my opinion, but someone may find it helpful.  The only thing I think she doesn't address is the magic knot.  I just magic knot right at the spot where one round ends and the other begins.  Perfection isn't required here.

Here are two short videos demonstrating the magic knot:

The way I do it:

If you, say... like to wear a belt with your suspenders, you may be more comfortable with this way:

I have found that in picking out my color combinations, starting with a variegated yarn that has some white in it, works well.  I think the pops of white keeps these lighthearted.  Then just pull together five or so colors that play well with each other. Crochet them up in any order, or be very deliberate in your color placement.  It doesn't seem to matter.

I suppose it's possible that one day I'll make one that I dislike, but so far...  not a single one is a loser.

Last week, and this, I am sure is just the beginning:

These can be made any size. I happen to like my dishcloths on the small size (6 1/2 - 7 inches square) because they stretch out when wet (though these stretch much less than knitted cloths).  I'll come back and edit this if my preference changes after washing some of these several times.

Hopefully soon, I'll be showing other crafty things again, but I'm pretty sure these cloths will remain a relaxing fun project that continues in the background.  

Yep.  I could be at this for a while...