Another Quick Crochet Project

Last spring or summer I made strips of “yarn” from old tee shirts, and finger-crocheted them into long strands, and then started stitching them together in a spiral to make a rug for Julia’s room. I had another bunch of yarn ready for a rug for Alex’s room too. My problem – which happened again and again, after ripping out stitches and starting over…and over – was that the rug kept bumping up in the middle. I know I was pulling the stitches too tight, and no matter how loosely I thought I was stitching, it happened again and again.

So the other day I thought – hey! I know how to crochet now! I could just…crochet a rug!

And with the accompanying enthusiasm, plus a couple days off from work, I unraveled alllllllllllllll the yarn in the rug and the rug-to-be, and got my biggest crochet hook and started crocheting in the round.

Well, I still ended up with problems…bumping up…buckling…and so I kind of stopped trying to be consistent in my stitches. I would do some double crochet, then if I thought the situation warranted it, I’d do a chain and then a single crochet…I abandoned a pattern and just free-formed it.

And the above picture is Julia’s rug. I think it sort of looks like a flower. Or a really colorful lily pad.

Anyway, I also did one for Alex, his began as more of an oval shape but still ended up freeform. But it’s finished, which was my goal.

I’m trying to ignore some of my perfectionist tendencies. I think they cripple my productivity.

Last thing I had to do – make them non-skid. I’d heard you can use caulk on the underside, and then I read that you can use a hot glue gun. I didn’t have caulk, but I’ve got the glue gun, so just moments ago I ran strips of hot glue on the backs of the rugs.