Monday, December 27, 2010

Rugged up


With the sun being on strike since Boxing Day, the family took themselves off to the cinema today leaving me at home alone. Oh, the pottering possibilities...

I decided to dig out a crochet project that I'd been ignoring as it wasn't working out. I had been attempting to do my own version of a throw rug I'd seen on Dottie Angel's blog but wasn't crochet savvy enough to work out how to join the strips, above, as I went (the fact that I wasn't working in the same stitch didn't help, I tell myself) and didn't like the bulkiness when I tried to put the strips together in a more traditional way. Had done enough, though, not to want to pull it apart so just kept ignoring the whole thing.


But I wanted to crochet. So I pulled out the beautiful Japanese book that anyone interested in crochet would have already seen and gave crocheting a hexagon a go. It took a little figuring, but I finally cracked it. I'm now going to use all the Jo Sharp cottons I bought, unravel what I started and make a hexagonal rug.

The simple pleasure of achieving something small (but very tricky to me) while watching a feel-good movie - It's Complicated with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin - just happened to be on TV just as I sat down made the afternoon so pleasurable that I didn't care we'd missed out on the beach for two days running.

Clovelly's not going anywhere and I'll have the rug forever (if it gets finished!).

The light is quite appalling today as the colour of these Jo Sharp cottons are brilliant and deep. (The fact that the lighter green one is called Shamrock should give you an idea.) If it'd been a sunny day, though, I'd still be a crochet avoider...

4 comments:

  1. Hi Vera, love the blog! But now I want to shamelessly copy your project - is it too cheeky to ask you to do a post on how to make a hexagon?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Course it's not cheeky, Selina, but I can't put up the pattern as it's from a book so under copyright. Drop me an email at smallthingssimplepleasures@gmail.com. x

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh my gosh! vera. you undid all that crochet! ive got the same blanket, same problem, i cant bear to undo. even tho it was my first crochet project and looks, well, terrible!
    is this book in japanese? do you do all these wonderful things and speak japanese too!:!?
    angelina xxoo

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unfortunately Angelina Japanese is all Japanese to me!

    The hexagon pattern in the book is also given as a symbol chart, where the stiches are shown diagrammatically so no language needed. I love symbol charts as they show where to insert the hook as you go, so I find them easier to follow that written instructions alone.

    ReplyDelete