Handmade Dish Sponges

For as long as I remember I have felt  surge of guilt every time I have thrown away a dish sponge. I do sometimes wash my sponges with my kitchen towels, or throw them in the dishwasher when I run a load of dishes, but I still get a bit nervous that all of those nooks and crannies could be hanging on to dangerous bacteria. Now, I am not any sort of a germaphobe, mind you. We refrain from using antibacterial soaps and we believe in the 5-second rule (well, depending on how its been since I have cleaned the floors). But, I do get nervous about e-coli and the other really nasty bacterias that can make a child seriously sick, or, in some cases, even kill them.
So, I decided it was about time to make my own hand-knit dish sponges that I could safely wash and reuse time and time again. I ended up making 4, each one a little different, as I experimented with what worked best.
I used 100% cotton yarn (The orange skein I had in my stash and the pink was leftover yarn that I bought really cheap at the used art supply store, SCRAP). The pink is not my favorite color, but hey, I am just going to washing dishes with them. The cotton makes them easily machine-washable and dryable.
For all of the sponges I used a size 9 needle and cast on 14 stitches. For the first 2 sponges I decided to make them scrubby sponges. To do this, I cut netting from a sweet potato bag (you may also find oranges or other produce items that come in these). You can also buy this material new, but I figured this project was a great way to use those bags that otherwise don't have a great use. I cut the bag into a long strip by making a spiral about 1/2 inch wide, and you can attach multiple spirals together with a knot. Then, I just carried this strip of netting along with my yarn and wove it into the sponge. This does not feel good on your hands, as the netting is quite scratchy, so I found I could only knit these for about 15 minutes at a time. For these 2 scrubby sponges, I stopped when my sponge was a size I liked and then bound my stitches off. The next 2 sponges I did not use netting in the weave. Again I cast on 14 stitches and I just knit until my sponge was twice as wide as I wanted it to be. Then I bound off my stitches, filled the inside with some cut up netting to give it some bulk, and then sewed up the sides so I had a double-thick sponge.
I like the scrubbiness of the scrubby sponges, but they feel too thin for me. I think next time I would make them double thickness as well. I like the feel of the double-thick sponges, but since the netting is in the inside, they aren't good for scrubbing. But, I sort of consider this an experiment and next time I can make the perfect sponges!
I don't feel like these knit sponges hold the soap quite as well as a regular sponge, but I guess they aren't holding on to the bacteria either... I do find that I have to add smaller amounts of soap more often, but that is a small price to pay knowing that these sponges won't be getting tossed when I am finished. I have washed and dried them and was happy with the results.