Emptying my bins on Thursday night is a weekly task and little thought ever goes into it but this week I had a revelation! Opening up the bathroom bin to see pretty much a whole carrier bag full of cotton wool pads got me thinking… ‘what if I could find some alternative that is better for the environment and cheaper for me to buy’. It was a little thought, one that was there and then went as quick as it came and life went on until morning. Anyway as the daily routine of opening up Google Reader came about I whizzed through a few hundred boring news feeds and then BAM Eco Peek-o from Craft Candy hit me smack bang in the middle of my falafel sandwich! The answer to my prayers: Machine washable exfoliating round facial scrubbles from ‘Buy Hand‘ on Etsy.

So after browsing a few more of these little scrubbies I was just about to hit the buy button when I had a second brainwave – why don’t I just make some myself? And so, I did. I tried with single crochet, double crochet, magic circles, amigurumi spirals etc and settled on the pattern you’ll find at the bottom.

I think the double crochet ones worked the best. First off they’re an actual circle and not a sort of flattened hexagon like the single crochet type on the left. I also preferred starting with a magic ring rather than the typical chain method as you’ll notice in the picture below a magic ring means the centre hole is much smaller – but seen as this is just a preference I’ve included both in the pattern.

You’ll need:

• Kool Kotton – machine washable double knitting in white (or a colour of your choice);
• 5mm crochet hook;
• tapestry needle;
• scissors.

Instructions:

rd 1 – chain (ch) 3, 12 double crochet (dc) in 3rd ch from hook, slip stitch (sl st) to join round OR make a magic ring with 12 dc in round, sl st to join round (12);
rd 2 – ch 3, 1 dc in same stitch *2 dc in next stitch, repeat from * 11 times, finish round with sl st in 3rd ch stitch (24);
rd 3 – ch 3, 2 dc in next stitch, *1 dc in next stitch, 2 dc in next stitch, repeat from * 10 times, finish round with sl st in 3rd ch stitch (36).
Finish off and weave in ends.

Voi la and see you later disposable cotton wool pads, I’m hanging out with my new friends now.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Craft and tagged as amigurumi, crochet, environment, pattern. Print this blog post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.