How Knot to Crochet a Rug

Crocheted rugs are beautiful. We love a good crocheted rug. What we don't love about them, is the price of materials. How are you supposed to come up with a reasonably priced creation when you have to double your material to make them? Regular yarn isn't durable enough for something that you will walk on and need to occasionally clean. You would have to double and or triple up strands in order to make it.

I saw this pattern in passing that I have just been pining over. (Yes, that is a picture of a magazine. That is how I store information I want later!) It's been a long time since the last rug episode, long enough to forget the pain and the torture of making the stinky sisal rug. Not long enough to remember why buying the proper materials is important and something to save for. Seriously,  a good rug will cost about $60 in materials alone. After scouring the internet for some kind of cheaper material, I decided to go do some local shopping. We went to Big Lots, cause they usually have cheap rope. But it was still the same price as I saw online. Then I decided to go to Harbor Freight Tools. They have all sorts of weird stuff, surely they would have a spool of suitable material.

Ohhhhhh boy did they ever! All I saw was $15.99 for 600 ft and I was sold. It was shiny, it was bright, it was bold... how perfect! Mmmmmhmmmm... my husband even asked, "Honey, are you SURE you have to have it now?" I, in my crocheted rug crazed state of mind, responded, "Well, I've been bored and I really want to make this rug." There were some other great lines out of his smart alec mouth about being bored and finding stuff to do, but whatever. This is about the rug, not how witty my husband is.

I got out of the store and texted D a picture of my giant spool of rope:

When I got home, I eagerly started working on my masterpiece. Though not overly pliable, this definitely crocheted up better than the sisal. It was a bit sticky on the giant plastic hook if I didn't give myself enough room to get through my stitches. The rug took shape rather quickly, in my opinion. It just wasn't as solid of crochet as I was expecting, because it didn't have a lot of give. It was more loopy. It was still turning out rather cute and shaping up nicely. I left off at row seven with a very nasty blister and a pair of gloves that were being eaten alive by the material. This was probably not one of my better ideas. Being the plastic, there wasn't really a way to soak it into submission. It was just going to be rather springy and uncooperative. (Although, still more cooperative than the horrible sisal.)

It required a great amount of effort to get it to lay flat. I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do with this thing. As I walked on it to spread it out, I realized that I had made the perfect barn doily. Seriously, I can see it imprinted in the dirt by the door to wipe boots off on. It's just right and there are many levels of texture. It's really cute for an outdoor rug, but there are some definite raised spots where it just couldn't help itself... it was like trying to keep unruly hair in a ponytail.

I called it quits after row eight. It was large enough in diameter to pass as a decent rug to go in front of a door. My knuckle was still angry over the rough treatment and it was just obvious to me that any larger and it would be obnoxious. I had to come up with a way to stretch it completely out and kind of block it. I figured that getting it wet and letting it sit out in the sun should make it stay a bit better. I asked my husband for a way to block it. I was thinking of a sheet of plywood, some nails or screws and propping it up against a wall outside. He was thinking accessible objects. This is what happens when you ask a man for assistance in blocking:

He did very generously loan me the use of his BBQ. I have yet to know if it will be adequately stretched out. But I do know that I intend to have it available in our booths this next season. It's bright and cheerful. I can't wait to see what it looks like without the chairs, planter and BBQ. Durable: check. Cute: check. Totally impractical for the original pattern of the rug: most definitely. We really have poor luck in choosing inexpensive, accessible rug materials. No wonder those things cost so much! By the time that we get around to use the proper materials, we may have enough ways NOT to make a rug to write a book. For now, you get a blog and someone gets a very cute, durable barn doily with which to wipe their boots!