I am expecting house guests in a couple of weeks and need to get a head start on spring cleaning. At the moment, my crochet empire/guest room both lacks the imperial grandeur of an empire and is not functional as a guest room (unless your guests happen to be myriad skeins of yarn).

So as part of taking stock on the last day of one month before embarking on the first day of the next, I channeled my favorite organizing guru, Hellen Buttegieg, and began sorting like with like.

In this instance sorting like with like meant that I gathered longer yarn scraps to be incorporated into my great-granny square project into one pile and gathered much shorter yarn scraps to be tied together and rolled into balls of yarn for an as-yet-not-fully-determined project into a second pile .

It also meant that I needed to go to the post office to send packages that were housed in the crochet empire/guest room waiting to be sent to their final destination.

After I had done enough sorting that it appeared I had at least made modest progress in my efforts to restore grandeur to my crochet empire, I turned my attention to a scrubbie pattern I had found on ravelry. Maybe, I posited, I would find sink scrubbing less odious if I had something cute to scrub with.

So, I got out my every trusty Red Heart Super Saver yarn and a 4.0mm hook and used Doni Speigle’s Scrubbie Dots pattern (available as a free download at ravelry) and set to work. As I soon discovered, Scrubbie Dots is just one of Ms. Speigle’s lively and whimsical patterns that seemed to be designed to be functional as well as fun.

In very short order, I had managed to finish three citrus inspired scrubbies:

So I want to send a thank you out into the universe to Doni Speigle for taking the time to create (and write) delightful crochet patterns that add an element of fun to housework. If you want to see her work for yourself, you can follower her crafting adventures at her blog, Whiskers & Wool.