Nobby Scrubby

I've been looking for different kinds of kitchen items to crochet for a friend who is putting together items for a basket to donate. Another friend sent me a link for this free pattern which you can find here. These work up quickly and are good for targeted scrubbing jobs in the kitchen. Even with my big hands I was able to get three fingers into the hand section. This allows you to apply a little more pressure as you are cleaning.

Just a few notes for myself. The pattern requires you to work two pieces of cotton kitchen yarn together, so you need to make sure you have two available to use. You can use two separate skeins or roll two balls, but it isn't easy to work from both ends. Second, check your guage for this project. Gauge can be off when you work with multiple skeins. I had to go from the required J hook to a K to make gauge. If I hadn't the pocket for my hand would have been too small and the cleaning area would have been almost useless.

Flower Power Scrubby

As I mentioned in a previous post a friend is collecting kitchen items for her donation project and I thought it would be fun to experiment with projects.

This was another free scrubby pattern I found here. If you haven't worked with plastic scrubby's before and like video tutorials Lily has a great one here. I found both patterns worked better for me when I understood the basics of setting up the foundation row. If this isn't a problem for you than by all means proceed on with your project.

Two notes with this pattern. First is a simple typing mistake that lists (2) round 3's. This is simply fixed by completing all the rounds. Second was pointed out by the author of the pattern. My scrubbies didn't quite fit the pattern she created. I tried increasing the size of my hook but at a certain point gaps appeared making the appearance look bad. I didn't want to change to dc as I felt hdc would likely last longer for the type of job being handled. So I simply followed the pattern adding an additional row with additional stitches in the row. It made it a bit more challenging when it came to joining it in that 36 stitches tends to be the standard joining to a scrubby, but I made it work and the additional leaves didn't seem to be an issue either. I liked the way it turned out for my project.

I don't use plastic scrubbies much these days as I found the free Spiral Scrubbie pattern here. This has been my go to pot scrubber and all around general cleaner for some time now. However, what I liked about the Flower Power Scrubby was I suppose a plus and a negative. On the plus size I liked that it gave me a place where you can hold it and scrub without the abrasive portion of the scrubby attacking your hand. On the down side you only can use one side of the scrubby. Once sewn in you only get to use the outward side. Once it is worn down, it is done. Then again I use my crochet goods. I'm not some of these aren't just for decorative purposes.

Scrubby Posey

A friend has asked for kitchen items for her donation project and so I've been having fun experimenting with projects I don't normally try for myself. I was looking for projects I could make while watching the Olympics so it had to be something that I could do that didn't require maximum focus and I came across patterns made with plastic scrubbies. While I was out picking up kitchen cotton for another project, I also made sure I picked up a package of scrubbies to see if I could even work with them successfully.

This is a free pattern available from Lily here. If you've never crocheted with the plastic scrubbies before, the Lily site has a video tutorial on the same page as the pattern that I found rather helpful in explaining how to get your hook through the mesh and how to get the first row established evenly. I had concerns about ripping the mesh, but the video gave some good tips not just for the foundation row, but works through the whole pattern with you.

This is a great scrap project to finish off cotton left over from other projects. These work up quickly and are great for little gifts or for craft fundraisers.