Lately we’ve been using a knitted dish scourer I made myself. Most supermarket dish scourers are made from plastic so I will not buy those any more. Some compostable hemp or coconut fibre versions are available from specialty stores. We have the coconut fibre ones and they last well. However, for most scrubbing jobs in the kitchen, the ones we like best are the ones I knit from recycled t-shirt yarn.
They are super easy to make, using just a knit stitch. If you are a gun crocheter, I’m sure you could use the yarn to crochet a dish scrubber too.
Knitted Dish Scourer
Equipment and Materials
- A ball of t-shirt yarn
- Pair of 6mm knitting needles
- Darning needle with large eye
- Small scissors
Instructions
1. Cast on 10 stitches
2. Knit about 17 rows until you have a square.
3. Cast off.
4. Weave the yarn ends back into the square using the darning needle.
That’s it! You have a knitted dish scrubber!
It will last well but when it starts to come apart, throw it in the compost. 100% cotton t-shirt yarn is compostable.
Other Alternatives
Fruit or onion bags can also be made into dish scrubbers. See this tutorial by Apron Stringz for how or make yarn with the bag in a similar way to the t-shirt yarn and knit or crochet a scrubbing pad.
There are lots of tutorials on the web for crocheting dish scrubbers with tuile but tuile is a plastic material so unless you are using recycled tuile, there isn’t much to be gained.
For gentle scrubbing, such as for glass shower screens, I’ve heard rolled up nylon stockings work well. We don’t have many of those around the house so I haven’t tried it yet but I’d love to hear if you have.
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