Update: Scrubbies 201

By far the most popular entry I've ever written here, in terms of page views anyway, is the how-to I did on crocheting dish scrubbies, back in 2007. Several crafting sites linked to it, my site stats went briefly bonkers before returning to normal, and I still get hits from those links all the time. Which makes me realize that I'm overdue to update it.

 

One of the comments on that post (in 2009; it still gets a lot of traffic) let me know that I could get the netting on rolls, instead of buying it by the yard and cutting it into strips myself. I thought this sounded good, but didn't do anything about it for a while (how very like me). Eventually I found a seller on eBay (seasonaldecorator, but there are others) and tried it. 

 

And wow, is it ever less labor intensive! Instead of buying the yardage, folding it, cutting it, rolling the strips into balls, and having to stop and tie ends together throughout the making, then tuck all those ends in ... I just grab the end of the roll and start crocheting; then when I'm done, there's only the first and last end to tuck in. Super-easy! It doesn't make working with netting any more fun, really, but it's a lot less work than it used to be.

 

I even have a little side table with decorative knobs that I can put a roll on, so it doesn't bounce across the couch (or floor) when I pull. Serendipity, I say.

You can see a knob in the foreground, and the roll of nylon net in the background is on another.

 

 Since I do still get comments on that page, and there are plenty of people clicking the links to see it, I've been meaning to update it for a while now. The old way still works fine, but if you want, there's an easier way.

The Thursday Box of Random

Blogging, Crochet, and ... so ... on?
Over two years ago, for no particular reason (no one asked for it or anything), I wrote a post about crocheting dish scrubbies, and it became by far the most popular entry ever made to this exercise in narcissism.

At the end of August last year, it was linked to by a crafty website, and my visitor numbers jumped. How well I remember. I was in Florida visiting my parents, checked my e-mail, and did a classic double-take. How many people?


This week, it seems to have happened again. I'm not sure if they're doing re-runs, but Thursday through Tuesday, I had roughly the average amount of visitors, and then Wednesday, well, look:

Hello, fans of crochet and/or dish scrubbies! Feel free to stay for the general mayhem.

Sudden Exhaustion Syndrome
Last night, I was piddling around, doing this and that, making dinner and eating dinner and talked to Mum*, then sat down with a book and some ice cream, was doing okay, and from one minute to the next, I was suddenly too tired to get ready for bed. I hate that! I need some sort of warning sign that pings half an hour before that point, and tells me to get my shit together because otherwise it will be ugly. When I get that tired, bumping my finger is enough to make me want to cry. I drop everything, repeatedly. Cats have been known to flee my ridiculous overreactions. It is not pretty, is what I'm saying. Usually, I don't get caught so by surprise, and it was only 9:30, but there you are. Perhaps I should start getting ready now.

*She's doing really well! One of the therapists called her a poster child for hip replacement. She's on her third room and finally without a (crazy, noisy, or otherwise disruptive) roommate, so she was anticipating a better night's sleep. She's supposed to go home tomorrow. And I will award some sort of prize to anyone who can tell me how decoupaging a picture frame is rehab for a hip replacement. Seriously. WTF?

As before, I am tempted to close with a LOL. Isn't this just so ... feline?

Saturday again

Today's been a decent day so far. Any day that starts by sleeping late has an edge, in my book. Here's some of my day, in pictures.

A nice walk on a pretty day.

Nature disregards human intention.

The trunk of the tree is inside the fence. At least part of the top is outside.

A path in the woods.

View through trees to the water.

Back inside, and a completed project.

Crochet, actually. A friend asked if I thought I could make hanger covers. I thought I could, and it turns out, I can! She was pleased, gave me dinner, and sent me home with more hangers.

One car, two unusual bumper stickers.

Book shopping!

Happy, happy. My Discover card gives me back a small percentage of what I charge, and when I have accumulated $20, I can cash it in, or exchange it for gift cards to various places, some of which raise the stakes. Thus, my $20 earned became $25 at Borders, so for $1.23 cash I got three books I've been wanting to own. Yay!

I'm off to watch game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. No one's winning the Cup tonight, but I have to soak in the hockey before it goes poof for the summer.

Aside: I just read a "trashy" romance novel with a hockey theme (trophy wife inherits $50 million and an NHL team when her aged husband dies), and though it wasn't bad, one of the things that bugged me was when it referred to "the cup." Excuse me, but when we talk about Lord Stanley's trophy, that would be the Cup. Capital C, thank you.

I wouldn't want you to worry

In case anyone looks at the weather report and wonders if I'm in a dangerous part of Florida, I'm not. We're getting a lot of rain from the edge of Gustav, and wind, but that's supposed to be it. We're feeling very lucky right now, and awfully sympathetic for New Orleans.

The other thing I wanted to address was a comment from Mary in Molino (who included no blog or e-mail info that I could find) on my entry on crocheting dish scrubbies. She wrote:

I crochet and knit but can't visualize. Help! on the scrubbies do you crochet with or around the net.

Thanks for asking, Mary! If you know crochet already, they should be pretty easy for you, though I know just what you mean about visualizing. Sometimes when I first read something, it makes no sense at all, then something clicks and it's like it jumps into focus: oh, that's what it means!

Anyway, all you are doing (to make the shape I make, anyway) is a rectangle of single crochet. You're using the strip of netting like it was yarn, and crocheting back and forth using single crochet stitch. I hope that helps, but feel free to e-mail me if you have further questions.

Funny story: the first time I tried to crochet anything other than the scrubbies, I was doing this because it was the only stitch I knew. Someone who actually knew how to crochet looked at my work and said, in some disbelief, "You're doing a blanket all in single crochet?" And I said yes, but I was thinking, "There's another way I could be doing it?"

Crocheting dish scrubbies 101

(Edited to add: This info has an update! Check out the latest: Scrubbies 201!)

Not that you asked, but I thought I would share the "secret" of making the dish scrubbies out of netting, otherwise known as how to turn this (aka coarse netting, bought by the yard):


into this (fabulous and desirable dish scrubbies):


I bought the netting at Fabric Place, but you can usually find it anywhere fabric is sold. It cost me 99¢ a yard last week, and a yard makes about 4 scrubbies the size I usually make them (but it all varies by the maker). Your time is certainly the larger 'expense', anyway. Here's how I do it.

I fold the material into a long piece, and clip it along the length because otherwise it won't stay put that way:


Then I cut it into pieces roughly two and a half inches long. I use my finger as a measure because it's easier than getting a ruler in there:

Too thick, and it's hard to work with; too thin, and the scrubby isn't as strong. (Some netting works up stronger and some not as strong, by the way, but I haven't figured out how to tell which is which before it's made up; if you do, let me know, eh?) Take the little strips:


and roll them into balls:


tucking the ends in:


This is how many I got from a yard:


You can make them whatever size you want, literally. I have made round ones, just to see if I could, and I even made a 3-D one as an experiment once after seeing an "apple" made of netting at a craft fair. But my standard is the rectangle, and comes out about 4 inches by 2 1/2. Habit, I suppose.

A note: If you crochet, these instructions will make some kind of sense; if you don't, well, I didn't either before Grandma passed the torch to me, so it can be done, but I don't know if you're going to learn from me today! I would recommend picking up one of those basic booklets they sell at places like Michael's, since that really helped me understand what I was supposed to be doing (Grandma is a wonderful woman, but her instructions got to a certain point and then said "Crochet as usual", which didn't help me much).

I cast on about 15 stitches with an H or I size hook before turning and single-crocheting the rest of the way. That's it, it's all single crochet. When I get to the end of a strip, I tie the end of the next one to it and keep going. It takes about 4 strips to make one, more or less. After I finish the 'body', I use a G hook to tuck in the loose ends.

Yes, it's hard on the hands, working with the netting! I find doing one takes about an hour, and I don't generally want to do more than that at a time. But it's worth it!