All of us at Po Campo love to relax with crafting, so we’ve been enjoying National Craft Month this March. This month our bags are also being featured in a fun pop-up shop at Knitche, a local yarn store. To celebrate both the pop-up and craft month, we’ve designed a free knit dishcloth pattern! In true Po Campo fashion, our pattern features a cute bicycle motif and is perfectly matched to our new Spring print.
Photos from our Instagram, the day the yarn arrived. Can you tell we were excited?
Designing a knitting pattern goes through a lot of the same steps as designing one of our prints. We just had a blog post last month about designing our Spring print Petals, and it was interesting how much of the process was so similar. We love choosing color inspiration around here, and decided to use the new Petals pattern as our design inspiration. Blue Sky Alpaca yarns had the perfect shades in their Worsted Cotton yarn, Hyacinth and Caribbean.
One of our favorite spring activities – a bicycle picnic!
We also knew from the beginning we wanted to feature a bicycle in our design. It’s hard to imagine a Po Campo knitting pattern without this! I decided to keep the bicycle theme by designing a washcloth/dishcloth that would be perfect to take on a bike picnic or to decorate your kitchen for spring.
Now we had a rough idea of our project, but what technique should we use?
Selbuvotter, also called Norweign Mittens, Source Left: Rigmors Selbu mittens 5th pair by Rigmor Duun Grande via Ravelry, Source Right: dccraftaholic128/Laura via Flickr
I’ve always loved the two color mittens of Norway, known as Selbuvotter. These become the design inspiration for our pattern, a large bicycle motif with patterned bands above and below. The two color stranded knitting also creates a squishy, dense fabric which is perfect for dishcloths. Many fair isle knitting patterns on Pinterest later, our design inspiration was all set!
Emerald Bike Ride print and the final knitting chart.
After all this design research, writing the pattern was easy. The shape of ladies frame bicycle from our Bike Ride prints was traced onto knitting graph paper, and motifs were filled in to balance the design. Finally, it was time to knit a sample.
Finished Bike and Be Free Dishcloth!
This was the most exciting part – watching the design take shape as I knit. I’m sure any crafter would agree, it’s magic watching a project develop under your hands. Our free knit dishcloth pattern was all ready for it’s debut.
Snapshots of Knitche and the lovely ladies who work there.
Meet Knitche! Our friends at Knitche in Downer’s Grove, IL run a full-service yarn shop catering to the unique needs of the hand knitter, crocheter and spinner. They stock a wide range of yarns, notions, patterns, books and accessories as well as a carefully selected collection of specialty items and jewelry. Plus, they have a cafe so you can hang out and knit with your new yarn purchases.
The fabulous Po Campo pop-up shop at Kntiche
Every month, Knitche hosts a pop-up shop for a featured brand. We were delighted when they asked us to take part. They have such a good eye for cute displays, as you can see.
Bike and Be Free Washcloth along with a Petals handlebar bag and the mood board for the Petals pattern
Last Saturday, we launched our free knit dishcloth pattern during a Meet and Greet at their store. Everyone seemed to be excited about knitting, biking, or (even better) both!
Now, we’re excited to share the pattern with you. You can download our free knit dishcloth pattern here. Ravelry users can also find the project here. We’d love to see photos of finished projects!
Want more ideas for National Craft Month? See our round up of spring craft ideas.
