Dish Drying Mat

Hubs and I have decided to make a conscious effort to move away from plastics to more all natural products, both in clothing and everything we use. So that also means a lot of items we use in the kitchen needs to be replaced. We've slowly migrated from using cute (nylon/polyester) crocheted scrubbies to natural coconut, apricot or bristle brushes and now it's time for us to move from our polyester/microfiber dish drying mats to something more natural. I had 3 skeins of Universal Bamboo Pop that I had intended to make a summer sweater for myself but never did so, I decided to use that for our drying mats instead.

 

My first hurdle was to rewind my yarn as I had partially used it to test out some stitches on it; I thought it would be better for the mats if I had held the yarn double. So I had to clean up my Bright Pink yarn (it was yarn barf madness!😖😵‍💫🤪🤦‍♀️).  After an hour, I managed to wrangle it into a reasonable cake. Then I decided to wind my Bright Spot together, which shouldn't have been a problem until I realized that one ball was significantly shorter than the other ball, then realizing that I didn't wind it evenly!😳😱😭🤦‍♀️ So, with the help of Hubs, I unwound it and rewound it. About 2 hours later, I had a reasonably wound cake again.

 

Now onto the other hard part: Picking a stitch pattern for my drying mats. I had a stitch pattern called Cobblestones which I thought would be a good pattern for my medium sized mat. For the larger mat, after some discussion, we ended up picking a stitch pattern from The Encyclopedia of Knitting by Lesley Stanfield & Melody Griffiths: Two-Twist Lattice

 

So I started the medium mat by casting on an addition 10 sts (5 on each side) for a seed stitch edge and 4 additional 18 st repeat. Then I did a 3 row Seed Stitch pattern before beginning the Cobblestones pattern. I did about 1.3 repeats before feeling that dread of not having enough yarn to finish the remaining 2.7 repeats plus 3 Seed Stitch rows that I still needed to do.  I realized that I didn't need the 10 additional stitches I had for the sides (I could've done with a total of 6 additional stitches) and I definitely had too many 18 st repeats (I should've only done 3 18 st repeats). So, what did I do? I abandoned it (knowing I had to rip it out and rewind the damn thing (again!) 😡😖😱🤦‍♀️) and started working on the larger mat instead.

It took a while for me to have enough motivation to actually start the larger mat (there was a lot going on at work where I just didn't have enough energy and brain power left at the end of the day nor the weekends to even consider knitting!😱😭😔) but, eventually, I did start it and here's how it went:

1. Cast on 94 sts.
2. Seed Stitch for the first 2 rows.
3. Continue Seed Stitch for the first 2 sts then follow the Two-Twist Lattice stitch pattern (10 sts repeat) 9 times, ending with a 2 sts Seed Stitch pattern.
4. Repeat the Two-Twist Lattice pattern 6 more times
5. End with 2 row Seed Stitch pattern
6. Bind off. 

Because it's been a while since I knitted, I decided to work on this project slowly as to not injure my wrist so it took me a total of 6x10 days to finish this mat.   I'm glad I decided to only knit a repeat per day.  It took me 5 hours to knit the 2nd repeat!😳😱🤦‍♀️ Then it took me 3 days to finish the next 2 repeats; then another 2 days to do another 1.8 repeats before I ran out of yarn (just shy of the last 4 rows for the 6th repeat!). 🙇‍♀️😱🤦‍♀️ 

Since I had run out of yarn for my larger mat, it forced me to go back to the medium mat. 😖😵‍💫🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ I had revisited the Cobblestone pattern and tried to work out the math. Ultimately, the pattern just wasn't working out because it needed more stitches than what my knitting gauge worked out to; I eventually conceded that I had to change the pattern. After searching the web, I found a Seersucker Pattern. This was just just about the right number of stitches. Here's how it went:

1. Cast on 69 sts.
2. Rows 1-2: Follow the Seed stitch pattern.
3. Rows 3-10: First & Last 2 stitches, follow Seed Stitch pattern, follow Seersucker Pattern in between the first 2 and last 2 stitches.
   
4. Repeat Rows 3-10 8 more times.
5. Last 2 rows: Follow the Seed Stitch pattern.
6. Bind off.

On Day 1, I completed rows 1-10; on Day 2, I completed 2 repeats; on Day 3, I finished another 3 repeats; on Day 4, I finished the last 3 repeats, the last 2 Seed Stitch rows and bound off.

 

Here's what it looks like:

I love how the colour pools! 🥰🧀😍

It's almost the exact dimensions as the drying mat I'm replacing!🥳🙌👍🥰

Here's the drying mat I'm replacing for reference; it's 46.4cm wide x 31.5cm high (that's 18 1/4" x 12 1/2").

I'm so glad that I had switched patterns; this was quick 8 row repeat, easy to remember and most importantly, easy on my hands. Plus, I think it came out quite well.🥰🙌🥳 Unfortunately, it only left me with this much yarn:

It wasn't nearly as much yarn as I had hoped for to finish up the large mat; so, I decided that i would just finish it off with the 2 seed stitch rows and bind off. Even with that (and stealing some of the cast on yarn I had hoped to use for a loop), I still ran out of yarn!😭😖🤦‍♀️ I ended up using a tiny bit of polyester yarn that kind of matched the colour to finish it off.

Here's how it came out:

The large mat I'm replacing is 62cm wide x 45.5cm high (that's 24.5"x 18") and my mat came out to: 53cm wide x 47.5cm high (21"x18.5") - close enough!😉👍

I must say: I did not love the twisted stitch pattern at all. 😔😖🤦‍♀️ Either I wasn't doing it right, I just had poor technique, or the yarn I'm using is too splitty because I simply struggled with the twisted stitches; it's not like a cable stitch at all, it's not even close to a 1x1 cable stitch.😖🤦‍♀️ It took me nearly to the 6th repeat before I found a way to work the twisted stitches in a much more "easier" manner; however, I still didn't care to stitch it (despite really liking how my mat came out). 😖🤦‍♀️ I'm glad to be done with this project and plan to avoid twisted stitches for a while! 😉😵‍💫

I hope my new mats work out!👍🎉🎊🥳