Changing the World Order with Dishcloths (well, kind of)

It’s interesting how an idea spreads like a virus. This is something I’ve been think about for a couple of weeks, but coincidentally was blogged about by both Susie at Useless Beauty and Rachel at Growing Things and Making Things in the past week. I am too much of a sloth to protest against … well, most things, actually. There’s not much in the way of protesting going on in this part of the world anyway, though I might be moved to a spot of pitchfork-waving if cacti continue to disappear from our Botanical Gardens.

Otherwise I am shamefully passive, so this is my contribution to the topic of

How To Change The World 

Without Leaving The Comfort Of Your Living Room 

in 20,000 Easy Steps

(Many of Which Will Involve Handicrafts).

Part 1: Make your own dishcloths.

Left: Dishcloth of Rebellion. Right: Evil Capitalist Dishcloth

I crocheted a dishcloth. Actually, I crocheted three dishcloths in the past two days. The fact that I crocheted dishcloths will have two possible effects on you, the reader. Either you’ll wonder why I’ve even bothered to mention it, or you’ll wonder why on earth I bothered to make something as mundane as a dishcloth. If you belong in the former category, you’re probably a crafter. If you belong in the latter category – indeed, if you’re still wondering why I’d put so much effort into creating something that I’ll use to wipe encrusted gunk off the hob of my cooker – then you’re either not a crafter … or you’re me a short time ago. 

Up until a few months ago, I used to see pages of knitted and crocheted cloths and trivets on crafting websites and wonder, “Why did they bother?” I mean: seriously!  See, I could buy a pack of 5 scrubbing cloths for 89c. They’re disposable items: they can’t be washed (I’ve tried) but why bother anyway, because they’re so cheap? It’s just more convenient to buy another pack than to try to re-use them. But to spend an evening actually making one and the next morning plonk it into a basin of soapy water to scrub dried-in jam off my breakfast plates? Puh-lease!

But - after a period of deep introspection (excuse me: did I hear you snort?), I realised that I was doing the very thing that drives me nuts about other (non-crafty) people:

If I had a euro for every time I’ve been asked why I “bother” to crochet by someone with the portly stature of a chronic couch potato, I’d be able to afford to crochet my dishcloths in mermaid bumfluff. (Interesting, isn’t it, how people with hobbies never ask you why you “bother” to do handicrafts? Just those who habitually spend their free time sprawled across a couch in their jammes. Nothing wrong with it, of course, but I like to mix my couch surfing with a soupçon of needlework.) So if I’m going to spend an evening watching Cheers re-runs on TV, I can do so - and at the end of it, produce a cloth that I could, theoretically, use for years. If I grow attached to it (which is doubtful, given my loathing of all things domestic), I could possibly even have it for decades. See, here's my radical notion: if we’re being sold things to make our lives more convenient, to free us up to do … well, usually nothing, why not fill that time creating something that replaces the thing that we’ve been sold to give us enough time not to have to make them?

Re-read that. I think I’m making sense, but I’m not entirely sure yet. I’m getting flashbacks to college lectures about Marcuse’s theory of repressive desublimination here, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have used crocheted dishcloths as an example of how we can start a global upheaval. Then again, if he'd had to scour his own porridge pot with cheapie synthetic scrubbers, he might've come over to the dark side, hooks and all. 

That's my theory, anyway. 

Dishcloth pattern here.