Jes's Pick-Me-Up Dishtowel

My friend Jes has recently moved down to Mississippi to earn her Ph.D. in chemistry (because she's awesome like that), but is finding the move kind of tough. So I decided to knit her something bright and cheery and also, you know, useful in 95 degree weather. Unsurprisingly, the fine women at Mason-Dixon Knitting came through.


Two ballband dishcloths, and a dishtowel based on the Nine-Patch Dishcloth that Kay Gardiner designed. I modified the pattern in order to make it large enough to use as a dishtowel, and thought I'd post the pattern (such as it is) here, in case anyone is interested.

Yarn: Lily Sugar'n Cream Super Size Solid in White (C1), Hot Pink (C2) and Green (C3). [Each 4 oz (113 g) ball has something like 200 yards; I used one ball each to knit the dishtowel and two ballband dishcloths, and have enough left over for probably another ballband.]

Needles: 4.5 mm/ US 7

Pattern Notes: (Based on Kay Gardiner's Nine-Patch Dishcloth)

There are a LOT of ends to weave in here, what with all the color changes and the striped miters. As someone who hates weaving in ends, I advise you to do it as you go along - not only will the dangly bits of yarn not be driving you crazy, you also won't have to feel like an idiot when you sit down to do two hours of finishing on a dishtowel. (I'm not kidding. Weave in as you go.)

You will be knitting in intarsia for part of the time, and so you may want to divide your C3 ball into two balls. I will admit that I just knit from the other end of the ball, but you may be less slovenly.

Also, I have specified to pick up all sts on the RS, which gives you a kind of patchwork effect exclusively on the WS, like so:

If you want to distribute this effect to both sides, just pick up some squares on the WS.

Pattern:

With C1, cast on 16 sts. K 32 rows (16 garter ridges). *Break yarn, join C2 and k 32 rows. Break yarn, join C1 and K 32 rows. Repeat from * once: you will have a strip of knitting with five blocks of color. Bind off.

With C3, on RS of work, pick up and K 16 sts along one C2 block. (You can easily pick up sts at each garter ridge, and so your squares of color will match pretty well.) Leave C3 yarn dangling, and joining C2, pick up and K 16 sts along the center block in C1. Leave C2 yarn dangling, and with second ball of C3, pick up and K 16 sts along the second C2 block.

Now you have three color blocks that you will be working simultaneously. Just knit across all sts, changing colors at the edge of each block. (This is the intarsia bit, and it's really not hard - just make sure you twist the yarns around each other, bringing the second color up from behind the first, so there's no gap between sts. I found this very difficult to imagine, but simple to do once I had the knitting in front of me. Check out this link for an illustration, but if that seems confusing, just start knitting - what you need to do quickly becomes apparent.)

K 32 rows/16 garter ridges along all three color blocks. Bind off in color pattern, against twisting the yarns in the bind off row as you have done for the color blocks. Repeat for the other side.

(Now we'll work the mitered corners, basically as described for the Nine-Patch Dishcloth, except that I picked up the miters on the RS, and we're striping three colors.)

In one corner, using C2 with the RS of work facing, pick up and K 16 sts along one side of the corner, 1 st in the corner itself (the center st), and 16 sts along the other side of the corner. (If you want to place a marker, do so before the center st, but I found the marker more cumbersome than helpful.) On WS, K to center st, purl center st, and K across to end.

Row 1 (RS): Letting C2 dangle, join C3 and K to 2 sts before center st, SSK, K center st, K2 tog, K to end of row.

Row 2 (WS): K to center st, P center st, K to end of row.

Letting C3 dangle, join C1 and knit Rows 1 and 2.

Continue in patt (working miter stripes in C2, C3, C1), stranding yarn up the side of the work, until 3 sts remain. On the next row, slip 1 purlwise, K2tog, PSSO. Fasten off the remaining stitch.

Repeat for the other 3 corners.

Weave in ends and enjoy!