Years and years ago when I only had one little child, my next door neighbor was Mennonite. One weekend she and I and my daughter took a trip together to visit her Mennonite and Amish relatives in Ohio. In fact, we spent a weekend on an Amish farm - an experience I enjoyed very much.

One afternoon on the farm, we all went and visited another nearby meticulous Amish farm. I especially remember two things from that brief visit: a conversation in which it was explained to me that it works out very well having larger families if you start training the children young to take up daily tasks and the obviously hand knitted dishcloths at the kitchen sink. It had never occurred to me that you could actually make your own dish cloths so I was surprised to see them. Many years later, I can now vouch for the former principle of training children for family life but as I was at the beginning of my odyssey of self-reliant skill building back then, I took note of the dish cloths but never got around to actually making one. I tried once or twice over the ensuing years but the only instructions I found were for crocheted dish cloths which I had no idea how to do.

About a month ago, I came across an informative post at Reformed Farmer’s Wife. Leah is teaching herself how to knit and has turned out all kinds of wonderful things. She knitted a number of dish cloths, for instance. In her post Newly Acquired Skill she has photos and links and all the inspiration I needed to finally get started knitting dish cloths for myself. I already had some yellow and white cotton yarn tucked away partially made up into a very lame sort of dish cloth. I quickly found the yarn, tore out the old knitting and started afresh.

I choose the Moss Rib Cloth to start with because I thought the ribs would help with scrubbing and the directions were easy. Every afternoon when I was supposed to be resting for my adrenals, I spent at least some of the time quietly knitting. It was such a pleasant way to pass some time. I knitted other times of day, too, whenever I could but it was challenging. The brain fog I have from my physical condition and the myriad interruptions of full-to-the-brim family life challenged my concentration mightily - even with a pattern this simple. However, I persevered and finished it and now we are using it!

This is fun. I have already purchased two more skeins of cotton yarn for my next cloth and for my oldest daughter to start her first one. She has also already discovered that exercise is more satisfying and rest sweeter when accomplished through a gainful occupation.

One of the things I love most about this odyssey towards do it yourself skill-building in the service of a simpler life is the many “aha” moments. “Oh, that is how they used to do it,” and, “Oh, I can learn to do that myself,” and most especially, “Oh, we can do that as a family.” To me these are fun realizations full of all kinds of possibilities. I love it.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie