Knitted Kitchen Towels Free Pattern

 

The skies must have been dreary the day I brought home four bright balls of kitchen cotton.  I decided that all that color should be kitchen towels and adapted a published towel pattern to change the gauge and to also fix an error.  

The big striped towels are made from one ball of each of two colors, and the towel with the thin stripes is made from the leftovers, plus maybe a bit of yellow from another project.

 

They measure approximately 13 x 17".  In a more demure color scheme, they could be hand towels for the bathroom, but I envision these as cheerful kitchen towels.

Here's the recipe:

For one 13 x 17 hand or kitchen towel:

Supplies:
2 balls of kitchen cotton, approximately 120 yds each, eg., Lily's Sugar and Cream
Knitting needles size 7

With color A cast on 54 stitches

With A work knit every row for 1.5"

Switch to color B on the right side,
pattern row 1:  Using color B, k5, *k2tog, k2, kfb in next 2 stitches, k3, slip one, knit one, psso, repeat from * three times,  k last 5 stitches
pattern row 2:  K 5, purl to last 5 stitches, k5

repeat rows 1 & 2 twice

Switch to color B, repeat pattern for 4 rows, continue alternating colors A and B, end with 1.5" of garter stitch.

I carry both colors up the right side of the work by knitting the two strand together in the first stitch of every right side row.  The thin striped towel is made by alternating colors every 2 rows instead of every 4 rows and uses up your scraps from two towels.  I knit only 5 garter stitch rows on the thin striped towel.