blissfully clean

last summer we had an awful lot of fun putting together the final shipment of the 2013 bare naked club. we’d introduced our membership to super soft color grown organic cotton the previous year and we thought it was time to step things up a notch by designing a shipment with one of the heavier weight cotton yarns and pairing that with a new selection that might not be as familiar—

gorgeous, natural hemp.

at first i thought that we’d work with the very fine lace weight hemp so as to knit it into some long-lasting, hardwearing lace item, but the more i thought about it, the more i wanted to jump in with both feet and take on the challenge of a heavier hemp yarn.

so that’s what we did and with it, i came up with a group of projects that not only complemented the yarn choices well, but were wonderfully freeing for hot weather knitting.

the cotton was assigned for knitting the softest and most supple of wash cloths—in the knitter’s choice of three textures. the ecobutterfly organic color grown cotton sport yarn goes really far, in fact; two skeins was plenty for three generous cloths and most clubbies stretched it even further to knit four.

and now with a full selection of colors available, the project can be new all over again!

knitters also had choices for the hemp DK—it could be knit into a bath mitt in one of two styles or sizes OR into a back scrubber, also with two choices of texture and size.

we added some beads to the packages for adorning the pieces—clubbies got creative with hanging loops and edges using the beautiful recycled glass beads, also from ecobutterfly.

so many of these sets were destined for christmas gifts last year because they are wonderful gifting projects—reasonably priced, easy to knit, and fun. and something you can take care of right now when it’s too hot to knit anything warm or fuzzy.

you can even switch the yarns around a bit and knit the mitt in cotton if you like or the cloths in hemp.

shown above, three cloths from the i’m a soft touch pattern in ecobutterfly organics pakucho cotton sport, color golden café (click here to see a full range of color possibilities, from pale green to dark brown).  don’t be afraid to scale up the pattern to knit a towel or two, as many of our clubbies did.

or hey! super size that by using a worsted weight cotton selection and a larger needle to knit thick scrubby cloths, towels, or bath mats.

the mitts and scrubbers below from the i like it rough pattern were knit in ecobutterfly fluturi fine hemp DK  yarn, color natural white

click here to view more information about the patterns for i’m a soft touch or i like it rough. you may also view them in my ravelry pattern shop—click here for i’m a soft touch and here for i like it rough.

perpetual KALs for these projects and other club favorites are running live at all times in our swinging BNK clubhouse on ravelry—don’t be shy; you needn’t be club a member to join in the fun (but we hope you’ll consider it at some point!).

both these designs are included in the 2013 BNK eBook, which is overflowing with wonderful information about the yarns we produce as well as fourteen patterns custom designed to go with them.

and now i think it’s time to get our weekend on, don’t you?