Birthday Surprises, Tunisian crochet, and T-Shirt yarn.

A while back I spent the afternoon working with something I have never worked with before. You can crochet with almost anything; string, twine, sewing thread, plastic bags, wire, paper, strips of old towels, bed sheets and t-shirts.

As I have never worked with t-shirt yarn before, it seemed like a fun learning experience. I made a circular floor rug, in colours that would make the best kitchen colour scheme for my dream kitchen.

To start with it was really hard to work. The recycled garment factory cut off and rejected pieces makes for a stiff yarn that doesn’t bend too well. This was worked on a 12mm hook. Slightly bigger than suggested by the sleeve that was on the yarn bundles but it helped form the stitches without too much strain.

This rug has spent every day since being made, on the floor, right next to my bed and after a while, I noticed that it wasn’t so stiff anymore. It actually softened up a lot. It feels like a normal rug now. Be that because I step on it every morning and every night. No idea, but it’s certainly more welcome than the stiff and hard floor rug that it was when it was originally finished.

I also had a little experiment with Tunisian crochet. After getting some white cotton yarn from the yarn market in the city it was only natural I made a dishcloth. Youtube was a great help and it is surprisingly easy to work out once you get the hang of it. Sort of a cross between crochet and knitting, even if you need to use a bigger hook than suggested on the yarn sleeve.

Not bad for a first attempt. Several more may occur. Why buy cheap nasty dishcloths that never last long when you can make your own. With the range of cotton yarn colours and thickness, the options are endless.

There are plenty of yarn skeins in the box and more hats and scarves will be made to put in a box for Christmas or birthday pressies. Just in case. Although for the time being an experiment with waffle stitch is calling! Learning something new is always an eye opener and so is working with new yarn.

Back in February I started planning and working on a special project that I had to keep a secret for as long as possible because it is the birthday surprise for the most wonderful person in my life. Turns out the 4 months I had to work on it was a vast expanse of time that I wouldn’t need. A matter of weeks, maybe 6 or 8 weeks later it was done. All the stitching complete, the extra details made and stitched on. Now I’m not great with a needle and thread like I can be with yarn and a hook, but I think the way the extras were sewn on is pretty tidy.

My special someone prefers monochrome colours or pastels. A little more of a challenge when I myself tend to like the brighter colour combinations. So opting to learn a new combination of stitches for the project was a great way to work with different colours. The white, greys and black form a wave pattern and the Empire blue adds a little colour as a contrast in the block stitch.

I must admit the details that I added, the colour of the yarn doesn’t completely match the blue but it is as close as I could get when finishing off the project. Youtube videos helped a great deal with learning how to make the letters and the chunky yarn meant that the letters were a good size too. Not lost in the overall size of the blanket.

This was a really wonderful project for me to work on and keeping it all a secret from the one person I wanted to tell most was so hard, especially because of how amazing it turned out! There is a whole heap of love and care in each and every stitch.

Happy Birthday sweetheart! May this blanket always keep you warm.