Kelsey Crochet Kitchen Towels

The towels were completely unexpected.  I joined Melinda Miller’s Ravelry group just a few weeks earlier, right at the same time she was organizing a new crochet-along (really, I do way too many of these).  But of course I couldn’t say no.  New patterns!  Crochet fun!  There were two patterns, and one instantly caught my eye, called the Kelsey Dishcloth.  (My Ravelry notes are here.)

The Kelsey pattern was originally intended to be a dishcloth, but at the very moment that I was checking it out, trying to figure out how the color scheme would go, my littlest one came bounding into the kitchen to wash his hands after eating an apple (my kids love apples).  After getting water all over the floor and countertop, he went over to the “drying hands” towel and promptly dropped it on the floor when he was done.  It was a silly scene, and as I called him back over to pick it back up, I envisioned having a pretty crochet kitchen towel hanging there instead of these old raggedy towels that I use now.  (I’ll have to tell you about my towel stack sometime.  They’re ugly, but they are so incredibly functional.)

Anyway, this dishcloth pattern is geometrically set up so that adding an extra set of rows or two would be quite easy and that’s when I decided it would suit us just fine to turn them into some hand towels.  And so they are.  Wonderful hand towels!  I just love them.  I volleyed back and forth the idea of adding a button or two to wrap them around my oven handle, but then decided against it.  They’re great as is.

Between these crochet kitchen towels and the potholders that I made the other week (and something else I’ve got in the works… stay tuned!), I have myself a little bit of a kitchen set going on!  I do love it.  I just have to make certain that I don’t think my new lovelies are too pretty to use – after all, they were made to be functional. I’ve decided, in order to prevent that, that I’ll make a big pot of stew with warm crusty bread for dinner tonight (yes, while the rest of the world seems to be enjoying spring, we still have our cold rain and snow going on here).  My goal for this pot of stew – besides eating it, of course! – is to use these  kitchen things that I’ve made.  Without abandon.  I’ll let you know how it goes!