Reusable Swiffer Cover: a fail and a fix

By Monday, May 02, 2016 , , ,

I think that everyone can appreciate living with less. We live in a world that encourages one time convenience instead of looking towards sustainable options. Investing in things that are reusable may require a little extra effort but the long term savings and elimination of wastes can be tremendous.

Yes, you will need to wash these Swiffer covers instead of tossing them in the trash once they've been use but you will also always have a Swiffer cover on hand from here on out. You won't be forgetting to pick them up from the store or spending any more money on them. This is something I think we can all appreciate and is far worth having to toss these in the washer after use. 

I would recommend making two or three of these because you might want to change them out during your cleaning. I will admit, I never owned a Swiffer because I didn't want to deal with having to buy new pads for it all the time. Then I saw a pattern for making your own covers on Revelry and decided to queue it. My roommate brought a Swiffer with her to our apartment and I finally had a reason to make these.

You might have noticed that the title of this post mentioned a fail. For some reason while I was making the first one, I failed to test the size of the pad against the base of the Swiffer and it ended up too large. Also the bobbles in the pattern didn't match the where you snapped the pad to the Swiffer nor were they necessary. The stockinette stitch held it in place just fine. I easily could have lived with this ill-fitting cover but I decided to undo it all and try again, tweaking the pattern for a better fit. Herein lying the fix. I decreased the number of stitches from the original pattern and eliminated the bobbles. I also avoided increasing the stitches for the seed stitch body. 
This is a picture of the original cover following the pattern exactly.
The bottom was fine but you can see how there is a lot of excess on each side and the bobbles were all wrong.
And the fix. As you can see, SO. MUCH. BETTER. Worth tearing it out and making some modifications.
What you need
- Cotton yarn
- US needles
- Tapestry needle

Directions
- Cast on 39 stitches
- Row 1: Slip 1 purlwise, purl until 1 stitch remains, knit 1
- Row 2: Slip 1 purlwise, knit to end
- Row 3: Repeat row 1
- Row 4: Repeat row 2
- Row 5: Repeat row 1
- Row 6: Repeat row 2
- Row 7: Repeat row 1
- Row 8: Repeat row 2
- Row 9: Repeat row 1
- Row 10: Repeat row 2
- Rows 11-44: Slip 1 purlwise, purl 1, knit 1
- Row 45: Repeat row 1
- Row 46: Repeat row 2
- Row 47: Repeat row 1
- Row 48: Repeat row 2
- Row 49: Repeat row 1
- Row 50: Repeat row 2
- Row 51: Repeat row 1
- Row 52: Repeat row 2
- Row 53: Repeat row 1
- Bind off and weave in ends.

Modified from this free pattern by Birdy Evans
You can check out my project here on Revelry
There are also a bunch of other free knit and crochet Swiffer cover patterns on Ravelry! 

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