I was think­ing of mak­ing some prac­ti­cal Christ­mas gifts for fam­i­ly. I thought of mak­ing wash cloths. Because every­one can use more wash cloths. And I made a cou­ple using this excel­lent pat­tern from Haku­cho. It’s a lot of fun to knit using var­ie­gat­ed yarn!

And then I thought I could mod­i­fy the stitch pat­tern a bit and make some hand-dry­ing tow­els. I know that the spe­cif­ic gift recip­i­ents I’m think­ing of are always invit­ing peo­ple over and host­ing gath­er­ings for fam­i­ly and friends. And the hexa­gon pat­tern lends itself eas­i­ly to the mak­ing of a pineap­ple, and pineap­ple is a sym­bol of warm wel­come, friend­ship and hos­pi­tal­i­ty (read more here if you’re inter­est­ed!). So the pineap­ple hand-dry­ing tow­el pat­tern was cre­at­ed. And since it is a sym­bol of friend­ship, it must be shared ^_^

I used Bernat Hand­i­crafter Cot­ton in “Lemon Swirl” and “Sage Green”. I wish I could find a brighter yel­low and a lighter green, but there weren’t any oth­er kind of worsted cot­ton at the Michaels I vis­it­ed. But I think over­all it still looks like a pineapple.

This pat­tern uses both knit­ting and cro­chet. Cro­chet is only used in the top (green, hang­ing) part. It’s not com­pli­cat­ed, just involves mak­ing chains, sin­gle cro­chet and slip stitch.

I used two 4.5 mm straight nee­dles and a 3.5 mm cro­chet hook. Also used tapes­try nee­dle for sewing and a 1‑inch button.

Knit — pineap­ple body:

First, down­load the free Cir­cle Cloth pat­tern from Haku­cho. (I know it’s a bit annoy­ing to go back and forth between two pat­terns, but the knit­ting pat­tern isn’t mine so I don’t want to repro­duce it here — so please bear with me >_<)

With green, CO 14.

Row 1: p all stitches.

Row 2: kfb all stitch­es (28 st).

Rows 3–8: Attach yel­low, work pat­tern rows 3–8 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Row 9: Switch to green, work pat­tern row 9 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Row 10: k2, *k1fb, k1*, repeat from * to * across until last 3 st, k3 (40 st).

Rows 11–12: Work pat­tern rows 11–12 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Rows 13–18: Switch to yel­low, work pat­tern rows 3–8 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Rows 19–22: Switch to green, work pat­tern rows 9–12 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Rows 23–28: With yel­low, work pat­tern rows 13–18 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Rows 29–32: With green, work pat­tern rows 19–22 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Now there should be 3 sec­tions of yel­low completed.

Repeat pat­tern rows 3–22 in Cir­cle Cloth pat­tern 3 more times. Then repeat pat­tern rows 3–8 once more. There should be 10 sec­tions of yel­low alto­geth­er. Fas­ten off yellow.

Pineap­ple top row 1: With green, work pat­tern row 9 in Cir­cle Cloth pattern.

Row 2: k1, k2tog to last st, k1.

Row 3: p1, p2tog to last st, p1. (11 st.)

Row 4: k all st.

Row 5: p all st.

BO all st, don’t fas­ten off. Insert cro­chet hook in last remain­ing loop.

Cro­chet — pineap­ple top:

The pineap­ple top is cro­cheted in loops. We’ll first make 2 loops attached to the pineap­ple top, then make 3 longer loops going from the pineap­ple top and attached togeth­er at the top cre­at­ing a but­ton­hole tap, and end with 2 loops attached to the pineap­ple top, like so…

Loop 1: From where we left off in the knit­ting part, ch 25, sc in same st at begin­ning of ch. When cro­chet­ing into the knit part, be sure to insert hook through both loops in the BO stitches.

Loop 2: ch 25, sc in next BO st.

Loop 3: sc in next BO st, ch 42, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next 5 ch, ch 35, sc in next BO st at pineap­ple top.

Loop 4: sc in next BO st, ch 35, sc in each sc in the 6‑sc row that was made in loop 3, ch 1, turn (turn­ing ch does not count as a st), sc in first sc, ch 3, skip 3 sc, sc in next 2 sc, ch 35, sc in next BO st.

Loop 5: sc in next BO st, ch 35, sc in next 2 sc at top of loop 4, 3 sc in next ch 3 sp, sc in last sc, ch 1, turn, sc in next 6 sc, ch 35, sc in next BO st.

Loop 6: sc in next BO st, ch 25, sc in next BO st.

Loop 7: ch 25, sl st in same st at begin­ning of ch, fas­ten off. Weave in ends.

Sew but­ton to the knit part of the pineap­ple top. And we’re done! :D

Hope you like the project and have fun if you do give it a try. Have a fab­u­lous first week of Octo­ber! :D