Why Choose an Artist-Designed Dishcloth
There are a lot of Swedish dishcloths on the market. Most are sold by people who bought a design from a catalogue, had it printed, and put it online. Nothing wrong with that — but it means the pattern on your bench came from a supplier, not a person.
Mine didn't. Every illustrated dishcloth I sell started as original artwork I made myself, here on the block in the Wairarapa, and there's a story behind every design — nothing on a cloth is chosen at random. The fantails and kererū are birds I actually see outside my window. The red mushroom designs came from a walk through the forest at Hanmer Springs, where I came across a whole stretch of forest floor carpeted in them — not a few scattered mushrooms, the entire ground covered, right up to the tree trunks. I couldn't stop thinking about it, so eventually it became a design. Each one is printed digitally onto a compostable cloth you'll actually use at the sink.
The "too pretty to use" problem
I hear this a lot at markets: "Oh, it's too pretty to use, I'd just want to look at it." I understand where that comes from. Most of us grew up watching our mothers and grandmothers keep the good china and linens for when we had visitors, while the everyday stuff was whatever was cheapest and most disposable.
I don't think that's actually serving us. The things we reach for dozens of times a day — wiping the bench, mopping up spills, doing the dishes — are the things we see and touch the most. So why shouldn't they be beautiful too? A cloth you actually enjoy picking up isn't precious. It's just a nicer way to do an ordinary job.
Practical as well as pretty
They're also fully biodegradable — made from wood pulp and cotton — and one cloth replaces around seventeen rolls of paper towels over its life. In the kitchen, they'll usually look their best for six to eight weeks before the print starts to soften, and I recommend a weekly wash in the machine. Unlike a sponge, they don't hold onto odours. Even a well-used cloth still absorbs about a quarter of a cup of water — just a touch slower than a fresh one. And once a cloth is finally done, it doesn't need to go in the bin. It composts, or works well tucked into a pot plant, where it helps hold moisture as it breaks down. Plenty of my customers give a softened cloth a second life outside the kitchen too, once the print's had its time — more on that in the Garage Edition guide.
Art for wherever you need it
You don't have to keep it in the kitchen either. The same cloth works just as well by the laundry sink or the bathroom basin — it's still doing its job, it's just doing it somewhere that could use a bit of colour too. There's no reason the room where you do your washing up has to be dull or forgettable.
A cloth that already has a memory attached
Most of my cloths are sold face to face, at a market stall, not through a checkout screen. That changes something. By the time a cloth leaves my table, it already has a memory attached to it — who you were with that day, what the weather was doing, the conversation we had while you picked between two designs. People tell me this again and again: they don't just remember buying the cloth, they remember the market, the company, the moment. That's part of what makes them good to give as gifts too — you're not just handing someone a nice, sustainable homeware item, you're handing them a small piece of a moment.
Every cloth ships with a care card — what it's made from, how to look after it, and other ways to get use out of it once it's had its time in the kitchen. For anyone overseas, it's a downloadable version, so a bit of that story travels with the cloth even without the market conversation.
That's really the whole idea behind what I make: practical things don't have to be boring, beautiful things don't have to be saved for best, and even the most everyday object can carry something worth remembering. Use the good one. Every day.
You can see the full range of artist-designed Swedish dishcloths in the shop, or come find me at a market and pick one out in person.