How do you economise on kitchen paper towel use?

Caroline-Encore

Lots of dishcloth cotton on e*ay. Some sellers/shops also call it 'craft cotton'.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

thriftwizard wrote: »

Indeed there are & some of them are huge fun! But off the top of my head, these are the simplest - will edit later when I've checked them for idiotic errors - & quickest to make. Can be done with parcel string, too, which may work out cheaper than buying dishcloth cotton.

Simple Dishcloths, about 6"/15cm sq:

Crochet - using dishcloth cotton or cotton string or similar, and 4mm hook:

Ch 33. Turn; Tr into 3rd ch from hook. Ch1, skipping ch below, Tr into next ch below. Repeat Ch1, Tr across work. Turn, ch 3, *Tr into top of 2nd Tr below. Ch1* & continue Tr, Ch1 across cloth. Repeat rows until happy with size. At corner, ch2 then DC right round the edge, using DC, ch2, DC at corners; when you get back to the first corner, you can make a hanging loop if required by ch 10, SS into original corner, ch2, DC back along the ch10, SS then fasten off. Otherwise just SS into original corner ch2 & fasten off. Weave loose end back in.

Knitting - using dishcloth cotton or cotton string or similar, and 4 mm needles:

Cast on 30 stitches. K30 & repeat until happy with length (Optional - SS the first stitch of each row to avoid those loose bits at the ends!) Cast off & weave end back in. These make great facecloths too; the crochet version is better as a dishcloth because it has more texture & drains & dries more quickly.

HTH!

Good grief - did you ever work at a place called Bletchley Park?




(Never learned this particular cipher, myself )


I don't buy newspapers. I pay enough for internet access as it is, I just have to make do without long weekend mornings with coffee and a paper weighing around a kilo.



I use Plenty most of the time (buy it when it's on special), along with superduper cheap basics sponge scourer thingies. The scourer with hot water/soap/bleach deals with the majority of stuff, and the kitchen paper goes over to ensure it's all clean and dry afterwards.

And dealing with the minefield of animal related nastiness (bleurghhhhs or eeeewwwwwws, mostly ), IMO, requires something instantly disposable and can't disintegrate in your hand, depositing said bleurghhhhhh or eeeeewwwwwww in between your fingers _pale_.




Anyhow. Time for tea.

fluffypocket

Don't know if this is a help, but we buy big rolls of blue roll, we buy at Makro but also have seen it at lots of markets, we find it lasts us ages and is so much cheaper than kitchen roll.
Hope that helps

Pink.

I must admit to being a fan of kitchen roll and it has to be 'Plenty' for me...I find the cheaper ones a false economy. I also keep four dishcloths in my washing machine which is just beside my sink. They get washed every time the machine goes on, which is at least once daily, so if one has been used for a mucky job it just goes straight into the machine for washing later.

We have an existing thread on this topic:

trying to save money what do people use instead of kitchen towel

I'll merge both together later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

Linda32

I don't buy kitchen roll either. We just use dishclothes and they get washed with the normal washing regularly.

ampersand

thriftwizard wrote: »

It's also good for lining bird cages, or the chicken's droppings board. I also shred it manually to use in the cats' litter tray. And I'm still attempting to work out a way to origami it to make OS plastic-free bin liners. Just glad to have found some practical uses for the Daily Telelaugh, OH's maddening "little indulgence!"

(Apologies for OT thread hijack...)

###########
......and for window cleaning, of course - as learnt from my grandmother.

valk_scot

I hardly use kitchen towels at all apart from wiping out the cat bowls before I put them in the dishwasher and the odd splat of something nasty on the floor. Instead I use cheap facecloths, currently the 10 for £3 ones from Ikea. I usually go through two or three per day for wiping down surfaces etc and they go in the wash like everything else. For mopping up I have a couple of dozen threadbare old cloth nappies, the square kind. They've been used for this ever since I discovered square nappies were a waste of time on babies, I'd been given a dozen new ones though so I had to use them for something and they were so useful for mopping up baby mess that I bought another dozen. That was 18 years ago and they're still going strong.

parkgirl

I use old tea shirts for dusters. Old terry nappies for cleaning cloths. Some J cloths for the loo and a dishcloth for the sink and wiping round - I then stick that in bleach in the sink and then into the dishwasher with the dishes at night time

thriftwizard

Good grief - did you ever work at a place called Bletchley Park?

No, but I have a black belt in macrame...

One thing not to use kitchen towel for - it really doesn't work for origami

Seriously, the one time it really gets a bashing in this household is when people have colds; loo roll disintegrates too quickly & I can't persuade them to use proper hankies, even when they can see me boil them before washing.

Caterina

And loo roll used to blow your nose can give you an unpleasant rash on the nostrils as it is usually too rough, unless you use super-duper mega-quilted!