dishcloths and home love

Here is the product of a couple weeks of (admittedly quite intermittent) knitting. Three dishcloths. I think this will more than sate the vague, once-yearly yarn cravings that descend on me each winter. I'm glad I picked such a small project this year, as it is one of the few I have actually finished. I have a whole basket of in-progress projects that have been "in-progress" for about five years. For some reason, knitting and crocheting doesn't seem to hold my attention for very long, though that may well be because I have never concentrated on it for more than about three weeks every January.

For these dishcloths, I used this pattern by Deb of Homespun Living. It was a fun pattern to knit, nothing complicated. I love the texture created by the knits and purls, and I am very proud of my stripes.

Around the same time I was knitting, I was re-reading Little Women. (Beth died. Again! sigh.) One passage in particular struck me this time as I read it. It's just before Meg's wedding, and all the sisters are working to get Meg's new house ready for the married couple. Amy drapes the curtains, Jo stocks the pantry, and Beth makes a stack of dishcloths, among other things.

"People who hire all these things done for them never know what they lose, for the homeliest tasks get beautified if loving hands do them, and Meg found so many proofs of this that everything in her small nest, from the kitchen roller to the silver vase on her parlor table, was eloquent of home love and tender forethought."

I like that very much. That's why I make things. These dishcloths, humble and wonky though they may be, are indeed eloquent of home love.