Why Cotton, Always, for a Washcloth
Okay. Before you buy yarn for this project, we need to talk about what kind, because if you show up with acrylic I'm going to send you back to the store.
I'm not being a snob about it. I want to be clear about that right up front, because there's a whole crowd of yarn people who look down their nose at acrylic and I am not one of them. I've made blankets out of the cheap stuff from Macey's for forty years and they're still around, still holding up, still getting dragged to soccer practice and thrown in the wash. Acrylic is fine. Buy the nice stuff when you want to treat yourself, not because somebody made you feel bad about the cheap stuff.
But a washcloth is a different animal. A washcloth has one job, and that job is getting wet, soaping up, and scrubbing something. Acrylic does not want to do that job.
Why acrylic fails you here
Acrylic yarn is basically plastic. That's not an insult, it's just what it is — spun plastic fiber. Plastic doesn't absorb water, it repels it. You ever try to wash your face with a plastic bag? That's acrylic in washcloth form. It'll push the water and soap around on the surface instead of soaking anything up. You end up scrubbing harder to make up for the yarn not doing its share.
And here's the bigger problem, the one that actually matters: acrylic melts. If that washcloth ends up anywhere near a hot pan — and in most houses it will, sooner or later, somebody grabs the nearest cloth off the counter to handle something on the stove — you can get melted plastic fused right onto your pan, or onto your hand. That's not a "some people say" caution. That's chemistry. Cotton doesn't do that. Cotton scorches like fabric does. Acrylic melts like plastic does, because it is plastic.
Cotton, always
So: cotton. A hundred percent cotton, the kind sold specifically for dishcloths — you'll see it at the craft store, usually in a wall of primary colors, sometimes called "worsted cotton" on the label. It's a little stiffer to work with than acrylic. It doesn't have that squishy give. Your hands will notice the difference in the first ten stitches. That's normal, that's just what cotton is like, and you'll get used to it fast.
Cotton absorbs water. It holds up to heat. It can go through the wash a thousand times and get better, not worse, the way a good cotton dishcloth does — a little softer, a little more broken in, still doing its job. That's what you want out of a working object. A washcloth isn't a decoration. It's a tool. Use the yarn built for tool work.
What to actually buy
Get one skein of cotton dishcloth yarn to start. You don't need much — one skein makes several washcloths, easily. Any color. This is not the project where color matters, this is the project where you're learning to hold a hook steady through a whole piece of work, so grab whatever's on the shelf that you don't hate looking at.
A confession, since we're on the subject of unfinished things
I have been working the same granny-square blanket, off and on, for two years now. I keep it in a bag by my chair. Every few months I pick it up, do a square or two, and then something else catches my eye — a baby's coming, somebody needs a beanie, whatever — and the granny-square blanket goes back in the bag.
I don't feel bad about it. I've decided both things are true at once: I refuse to feel guilty about it, and I also refuse to just sit down and finish the dang thing. It'll get done when it gets done, or it won't, and either way there's a bag of cotton yarn getting real use in the meantime because I use my own washcloths constantly and that blanket is still theoretical.
The reason I tell you that here is this: your first washcloth doesn't have to be the only thing you ever finish. Start it, keep it, come back to it if you set it down for a week. That's allowed. What's not allowed is starting with the wrong yarn and being frustrated the whole time because the cloth won't soak up water and you don't know why.
Get cotton. That part's not a preference, that's just the right tool for the job.
Before next time: pick up one skein of cotton dishcloth yarn — any color, doesn't matter — and bring your hook. Next lesson we start the actual washcloth.