Round Knit Scrubby Pattern

If you’re a knitter, you might be a little envious of crocheters who can whip up those nylon net scrubbies. Around and around they go with their crochet hooks and in no time they have a sweet little round scrubby. But what if you like to knit? Are we knitters forever stuck making flat rectangles like scarves and afghans? Can we knitters make circle scrubbies too?

Yes we can! But here’s the deal. It will start out looking really weird but trust me – that funky shape will actually give you a perfect circular scrubby once it’s all sewn together.

I’m loving some of the yarns that are currently available too, making it much easier to knit a nice scrubby without having to use the nylon net. My current favorite is the Red Heart Scrubby Sparkle Yarn – – it makes wonderful little scrubbies!

How To Knit Scrubbies

This pattern is a type of a knit spiral scrubby pattern (kind of like a tawashi) but as mentioned earlier when you start out, it sure doesn’t look much like a round scrubby. It uses a two-row repeat pattern that keeps increasing on one side, and decreasing on the other side which gives you this rather odd shape when you’re done.

However you then sew the cast on edge to the bound off edge, which creates a small tube. The next step is to run your yarn through the stitches along one edge of the tube and pull it tight to gather them together (we’re starting to get a circle!) Finally we’ll finish up by running our yarn through the stitches at the other end of the tube and pulling them tight to flatten things out and our round knit scrubby is complete!

Different Options for Round Knit Scrubbies

One of the things that makes this such an easy knit scrubby pattern is that there is so much flexibility in what size needle you use, what type of yarn you use, and even how many times you repeat the pattern rows.

Most of the time I use size 8 needles, but I’ve also made my scrubbies with size 7 or size 9 needles. Most of the time I use the Scrubby Sparkle Yarn, but I’ve also used the Scrub-ology Yarn (from Hobby Lobby), and cotton yarn. Most of the time I do 22 pattern rows, but sometimes I’ve done 24 or 26 to make a slightly larger scrubby. It’s definitely an easy pattern to experiment with. In the picture below I used my size 8 needles and 22 pattern rows for each of the three scrubbies, but just using different yarns give them three distinct looks.

When I use the Scrubby Sparkle yarn, I always use two strands held together for this pattern. Sometimes I use the same color for both strands, and sometimes I use different colors. Again, it’s fun to play around and see how things turn out.

Cotton yarn can be used for this pattern as well which will be less abrasive and can be used for other things like face cleansing. When the cotton yarn is used you can often see the spiral pattern a little better, and you can even alternate two colors to create stripes. It can be a great way to use up your cotton yarn scraps too!

And in the interest of keeping things real, most of the scrubbies pictured here are newly made and are all fluffy and pretty and sparkly. If you actually use them, they won’t stay that way but they’ll still work great. Here’s a picture of one of my new ones next to one I’ve been using for many months. Awwww, let’s show that hard working scrubby some love! He’s not so sparkly as his buddy there because he’s been cleaning pots and pans, been thrown in the washer and dryer many times, and is still going strong. He just ain’t so fluffy anymore. 🙂

One final word of warning – – making scrubbies is rather addicting! They’re fun to make while sitting around in the evening and you can get one finished in about 30 minutes. Before you know it, you’ll probably have a whole pile of scrubbies that appeared to just grow out of nowhere like weeds.

And that’s OK. All scrubbies are welcome at my house. ♥

Here’s the complete pattern:

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