The Ninepatch Dishrag from Mason-Dixon Knitting

< Pattern: Ninepatch Dishcloth
Source: Mason-Dixon Knitting
Designers: Kay Gardiner
Yarn: Sugar & Cream in various colors
Source: Hobby Lobby (don't forget, they close on Sundays and at 8, not 9 p.m., and the cashiers are vigilant, even with all the husbands that had been sent in at the last minute and were trying to avoid eye contact with any Hobby Lobby employees in their quest for that one more glue stick or hank of green superwash)
Amount of yarn needed for one cloth: about 1/2 ball of two different colors
Needles: size 6 Addi Turbo circular 24" for square patches, size 5 Addi Turbo circular 24" for mitered corners
Other notions: needle for finishing ends, stitch marker (the kind that looks like a large but squat plastic saftey pin), scissors

Notes: These go so much faster than the squares for the Mitered Squares Blanket. For me, that's about one cloth per day, with the first half done while listening to a book on my Ipod and the second half done during either DVDs of Gilmore Girls or The House of Elliot (a British soap opera about two sisters in the fashion business in the 20s - great clothes and sets) OR good reality T.V. (and that's not an oxymoron.)

Sugar & Cream trumps Tahki Cotton Classic if you're going for speed. And the fabric is just right for either a washcloth or a dishcloth: cushy, thick, springy. Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting says, in the pattern, that the Ninepatch doesn't match the Ballband dishcloth in waffle factor, but I actually prefer it - a bit more drapey, not so stiff. And the knitting is much less fussy. No constant yarn forward and yarn back and slipping stitches as in the Ballband cloth. And with the Ninepatch, as in the Log Cabin, you're still picking up stitches, but not as often and with more regular edges than in the Log Cabin cloths.

Best of all, with the Ninepatch, you get to play with color, for barely any investment in yarn. It's like making a tiny quilt.