Friday 17 May 2013

Crochet Bath Mat # 2 and "Easy Summer Living" Bag Giveaway Winners

My second crocheted bath mat has hit the floor! Took a bit longer to complete than I expected because when sewing the daisy hexagons together I discovered one or two rogue hexies with eleven petals instead of twelve. "Would anyone notice?", I asked myself."No, they wouldn't." But of course I had noticed and so I would in future notice; in fact every time I looked at it my eye was inexorably drawn to the offending missing petals. So with a certain amount of cursing, huffing and puffing I made myself unpick and redo the ones that were not quite right. If you spot any others that I haven't yet noticed, please don't tell me or I will have to redo those as well!


In the course of the unpicking, I also managed to snip the back of a perfectly good petal stitch which led to a bit of blue smoke and a lot of heated expletives. The one big downside of crochet as compared to knitting, I realise, is that it is virtually impossible to effect a repair of a damaged stitch unobtrusively. After my initial panic at realising what I'd done, I did however manage to pull the snipped ends through just enough to tie a new piece of yarn onto each end, thereby joining them together again, but it was touch and go. The join is on the back and doesn't show, I think, but it's a lesson to be a bit less scissor-happy in future!


Anyone else have any tips on repairing crochet without simply unravelling it and recrocheting? It occurs to me, for example, that, were any unwelcome moths to take a fancy to my blankets, any holes would be extraordinarily difficult to mend. Not too disastrous perhaps in a blanket made up of small, individual units, such as squares or hexagons, as the unit could be carefully cut out and redone, but fairly calamitous in a continuous piece of fabric such as my Sea-Ripple, which is fast reaching the finish line. I hope my cotton blankets are safer but it may be a good reason to stick to yarn not favoured by pesky moth larvae!


Anyway leaving aside such apocalyptic thoughts, I am very happy with my hexie daisy bath mat. Someone asked if I use any kind of backing for these. I don't and have found they are fine on their own but you could always sew on something non-slip if you wanted to. The nice thing about using cotton though, is that when damp, it's quite grippy anyway.

I have made my bath mat with a few more hexagons than the pattern in Sue's book (each of my rows has one more hexagon in it than the original pattern). This was to compensate for the fact that I was using a single strand of cotton yarn on its own, as opposed to a strand of cotton yarn and a strand of an acrylic together, so my hexagons came out a little bit smaller than Sue's. It's still quite compact which I really like - big enough to be practical to use, but not so big as to take ages to dry or, more significantly, to become too heavy when wet - this does not reflect a concern for the comfort of post-shower feet so much as a concern for my crochet becoming distorted! Priorities, people!


As with my first patchwork, Granny Square sampler, bath mat, I used a 4.5 mm hook and Rico Creative Cotton from my post-blanket stash, although alarmingly (or encouragingly, depending on how you look at it!), the stash pile doesn't seem to have diminished in size much!

Now on to the winners of my "Easy Summer Living" Bag giveaway. Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on them. Sorry, I haven't got enough to give a bag to all of you who wanted one. But if you haven't won one and want one, do give the pattern a go - it's really easy. And if you do hit any snags with the pattern or the instructions aren't clear, feel free to email me and I'll do my best to help.

The three winners, pulled, this time, in the old fashioned way, from a hooky hat, (well, a hooky bowl actually), are:

Elisa

MagsD

and Caroline Saunders

so if you could email me your postal addresses I will pop them in the post to you asap. (You can find my email address at the top of this page under the Contact Me tab.) I hope you enjoy using your bags and that we finally get some summery weather to fit their theme!

E x






12 comments:

  1. Congratulations to the giveaway winners, those bags are fabulous. Your second crochet bath mat is also pretty fabulous too..........love the colour mix and just the general exuberance and fresh prettiness of the design..........everyone should have daisies in the bathroom, so lovely.........sorry to hear you had a few mishaps along the way, but it's all part and parcel of the creative experience I suppose.
    Kim xx

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  2. I think this has to be the best bath mat I've ever seen, I would have to stay in the bath though....I wouldn't want to get it wet! :) x

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  3. Oh I am so excited to win one of your wonderful bags,.it has really cheered up a somewhat dreary week....I will email you a little later this evening....Happy Friday xx

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  4. Oh, I do love the bath mat! I have been browsing that book this week and it's a gem, full of things I really want to make. x

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  5. Your bathmat is very cheery, have you ad an probs with dye from the colours? I do like working in cotton, but it certainly is harder to sew in ends as it doesn't knit together as well as a wool based yarn, don't you think?

    I ave done the hexies before only to realise that there is a mistake on the insides....some of the hexagons I made for one blanket, turned out to only ave five sides when I went to sew them...there is not much way of making it fit then....I didn't momentarily wonder if I could get away with it!

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  6. I'm liking your priorities here :)

    And your bath mat!

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  7. Oh wow! It looks fantastic and the 11 petals, been there done that....a lot hehe
    Good to hear about your choice of yarn and hook size...just what I wanted to hear YOUR VERSION of the pattern.
    So pleased you have enjoyed the pattern and the book
    Huge hugs Sue x

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  8. Hi Elizabeth, me again. This is spooky but I am working up a blanket using that motif (well I say working but I haven't done anything in about 2 wks due to small baby and house pressures) - I don't have a book but kind of had to figure it out myself. I love Attic24's hexagon but it wasn't the one I wanted to use for my blanket. Anyway just wanted to let you know I love your bath mat. Super colourful as ever! Oh and great minds think alike!!
    Helen xx

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  9. I am happy that your bath mat turned out so well, after your mishaps. I am the same way when I make a mistake--I feel compelled to go back and fix it, even when only another very, very picky (or perfectionistic) person would notice it anyway. I do think, though, that there isn't much point in making something if I am going to always be a bit dissatisfied with the results. Also, I love the bright colors. I definitely need to add some brighter colors into my home decor. I am done with school at the end of this week, so maybe I can do something creative--after I've had some time to rest.

    Looking forward to my trip, which is fast approaching. Hope you and your family are well.

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  10. Lovely, this pattern works so well with your colours, I love this mix of really bright cheerful colours, I've nearly finished a ripple in a very similar colour scheme
    http://ahandfulofhope.blogspot.co.uk/

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  11. What a bright and cheerful bathmat. Over the years, I've found that glaring mistakes seem to jump out at me to start with, but over time I forget about them and don't notice. I've just got three parts of the way through knitting a fair isle jumper and realised I've misread the instructions and knitted the patterning slightly wrong. Decisions. Do I unravel several weeks worth of knitting or plough on. I suspect I'll just carry on but it will possibly always bug me.

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  12. This one is so beautiful too!

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