This is quite a different crochet project from when I last checked in, which was the polar-themed crochet quiet book, but the variety of what can be accomplished with crochet is one of the things I love about the craft! My next project I want to share with you is what I created using Lion Brand’s Stitch Soak Scrub yarn.
I was intrigued upon seeing this new-to-me type of yarn! It’s yarn you make into dish scrubbies. I was really excited about the concept of making a dish scrubber in the shape of anything I wanted. I imagined all these cute projects made effortlessly to help with a standard household chore. Boy was I wrong! Well, it does work, but as you’ll see, I had some unforeseen challenges and I wouldn’t recommend just making *anything*…
The product and material
First, the yarn: It’s from Lion Brand and it’s called Stitch Soak Scrub (don’t you just love it when the instructions are in the title 🙂)
The basic info is in the shots above, but essentially this yarn is a 100% nylon “string” bent in such a way that makes it thicker and almost chain-like. From the website:
“This innovative yarn is 100% nylon with a chainette construction and designed for making scrubbies. Choose one of the vibrant colors to match your kitchen or pick something that will add joy to your cleaning! Handcrafted kitchen scrubbers would make a lovely housewarming gift, too. Easy care – just machine wash and lay flat to dry.”
lionbrand.com
The project
I had it in my mind to make a granny square, figuring that a good start for this type of yarn would be to make something flat(ish) and easy to hold. I chose this sheep pattern from a book called 3D Granny Squares: 100 Crochet Patterns by Caitie Moore, Sharna Moore, and Celine Semaan:
And this is where things start to take a turn…
First attempt and initial issues
Um… not great. So first of all, the yarn is rough, so it was hard to pull out to start if you’re a center puller like I am. I struggled here really bad to begin with!!
Secondly, it is very inflexible with no give or stretch. I started to see the signs that this wasn’t what it was supposed to be way before I got to the point in the gif below, but I thought this was a “trust the process” moment so I kept going. Also, disclaimer: I don’t even know if I was following the pattern correctly as I’m still a little new to crochet. But here is my first attempt at making something with this yarn, putting this poor sheep together:
Also also: I need to mention that not only was this yarn rough and inflexible, it was hard to see because it was kind of translucent due to the way the little chain formations are made and you can see through the yarn. I was only doing simple stitches but it was still hard for me to make out the “v” shapes. Here’s a photo from the top looking down and you’ll see what I mean. I overlaid an edit on the right to point out the stitches:
Second attempt
Despite feeling like a failure, I decided to take another stab at it and see if another pattern would turn out better. I chose to do this llama:
Seems safer, right? 😅 The only thing is I kept the background green as I didn’t have this yarn in gray. I frogged everything to be able to re-use the yarn which was not easy either; there is no slip (which is a good thing due to the fact that this is meant for gripping onto particles, but makes a painful process even more painful and more of a process!).
I was really hoping the llama would come together so I could wash something with my creation!
There were times where I wouldn’t grab the working end of the yarn completely and my hook would go straight into it like this:
It wasn’t the end of the world; it was just another thing that would slow me down. But I did start to get the hang of it and my crocheting was going more quickly. Here’s the finished backing by itself — it won’t lay flat no matter what but I think that kind of helps show it as a scrubber:
After I made all the pieces, I realized I wouldn’t be able to do the tassels on the blanket or tail since those require frayed ends — oops. Ok, skip that. Here is me testing a dry fit:
Woo! It’s coming together. Now time to sew everything into place.
Sewing with scrubbie yarn
*cue more frustrations*
New issue #1 was threading the yarn into the yarn needle. I will admit that my method of threading this needle is to shove the yarn and roll it into the eye until some of it makes its way through and pull it. That is almost impossible with this yarn because this happens:
You don’t quite get all of it through so it just took me multiple attempts. Since I had such a hard time doing this, my strategy was to err on the side of having too much yarn so I wouldn’t have to keep cutting new lengths of yarn and threading those. But then all the repeated sewing stitches started to show their wear:
I got that ^ from sewing the llama onto the square I guess from the repeat friction of what the working yarn goes through in sewing.
In spite of the challenges, I emerged victorious: I made a llama granny square!
Thank goodness!!! Ok, looks cool, but does it clean?
Cleaning test
It was really stiff (and noisy) when freshly put together. But I was excited to finally put this project to the test! All I needed was a dirty dish, water, and dish soap.
I didn’t have any dirty dishes at the ready, but I needed to clean this bento container that made for a very convenient plant tray, so I went for it. I drizzled on some dish soap and ran the faucet over my brand new scrubber, which accepted the water quite readily with some wringing and massaging.
(Sorry for the blurriness here, it’s a still shot from a video that I will upload to my social media channels)
It did indeed soften after being soaked, which made it easier to work with.
So.. DID IT SCRUB? and possibly more importantly, DID IT STAY INTACT? Yes and yes! But did I think about how big and awkward it would be? Nope!
I wouldn’t call this a dealbreaker at all, but the biggest issue with what I made was its large size and awkwardness. Don’t get me wrong — it does the job! I like that I had the layers because I feel like I could scrub harder where the material is stacked on itself. But the larger size made it a little bit more challenging to work the scrubbie into the inside of edges and corners due to its, uh, floppiness.
Summary and final recommendation
It was after I finished all this that I learned actual scrubbie patterns exist 🤦♀️ which are much more reasonably sized, might I add! I will have to put some of those together and make a follow-up post. Stay tuned for that!
Even still, I would still call this project a success. I would not recommend this yarn to newbies due to the fact that the translucence makes the stitches hard to see; and using a yarn this stiff and rough is tiring and sometimes frustrating. This was a good practice round with this yarn to get me introduced to it, and I think I see more scrubbies in my future 🧼
