ode to the tribble

At a craft fair before Christmas, I bought a tribble. It's a round poofy type dish cloth thing. When I search tribble online, I find just as many sites about star wars. I have also found some calling this a 'spiral scrubbie'. One thing I love about craft fairs is that the makers of the items generally love their medium and are eager to talk about it. When I expressed some interest in the design behind it, she was happy to tell me all about it and even offered to write down the pattern. I love that she was eager to teach others.

So I bough one, but was happiest to go home knowing how to make one. You don't want to see a picture of the one I bought now, it's a little 'used'. I knew that if I could make it using that special dish cloth yarn instead of acrylic yarn and make it a touch bigger it would be even better.

I've been messing around with the directions she gave me and found it pretty easy to put one together. You start out by chaining on 20 stitches (keep an extra long tail). Then, you make a parallelogram by each row adding one increase at one end and a decrease at the other end. When you single crochet on the next row and just switch so that all the increases are on the same end and all the decreased are on the same end. Single crochet stitches are used throughout and the stitch is only done in the rear side of the previous single crochet. I should have taken a picture of that...

When it gets about 11 inches (for this extra large one), you just tie it off. I have found it helpful to make sure your ending tail is on the same side as the starting tail. Keep both tails long, like one at least 8 inches and the other at least 14 inches long.

Here's the only slightly tricky part. the end on the right and the end on the left get brought together to form a cylinder of sorts. Use one of the long tails to stitch the sides together.

You can see the dark green yarn that stitched this guy up. I just used my crochet needle to do this, but it would have been easier to use a yarn needle.

With the longest tail, weave in and out around the opening and pull tightly shut. Pull, pull, pull. Knot it up however it makes sense to you, as long as its nice and tight. These pictures were all taken in the Sew Cute crafting studio and I rather enjoyed the nice lighting (and good company).

Pull both tails to the open side. On the other open end, repeat weaving through the open edge. Tighten it up good and tight too. Knot it. If not already done so, secure it so that the tribble is connected in the middle. This perhaps looks and sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.

It's all ready for dishes. I have a lot waiting to be washed. Any volunteers?

I did search for a pattern online under the name tribble, but only found knit patterns. When I learned that it also goes by the name spiral scrubbie, I found a lot more out there. Here's a nice video on you tube that really shows what to do.