Shaker Dishcloths & Coasters

Recently I had a cold virus, and I was running a fever. I also happened to be reading A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt. In this book, he describes a dishcloth knit by colonial American Shakers, worked on size 2mm (US size 0) or smaller needles:

“The washcloths were circular, made of 16 segments of garter stitch, arranged in alternating colours. The rows ran radially, decreasing from the centre in alternate shortened rows.”

I read this, and I knew I wanted to take these two sentences and write a modern pattern. The low-grade fever I was running made it difficult to think ahead very far, so I just knit, ripped out, knit, and ripped out - until I got it.

This pattern is friendlier, using much bigger needles, delicious modern yarn, and has 12 color segments instead of 16.

* Pattern includes links to video tutorial.