The GD Shaker Rug

Back in January I got the Lion yarn catalog and pattern guide-thing. I saw this great Shaker-Inspired Rug and decided it would be a great wedding gift for my sister's wedding in April. I even paid for the pattern, which I usually try to avoid doing (well, it was only $4). (Speaking of buying patterns, Lion has a nifty thing where when you buy one of their patterns online you can choose to have it shipped to you (shipping charge) or to immediately receive it by pdf. That's great! I love instant gratification.)

Anyway, I got the pattern and went shopping for the yarn. The pattern (of course) called for Lion Cotton and Cotton Ease. Local stores only had them in a few colors, not the many needed for the pattern so I used mostly Lily Sugar 'n Cream with a few Lion Cotton and Cottons Eases - whatever it took to get the closest colors to the pattern. (bonus - Sugar 'n Cream is a lot cheaper)

I really wasn't thinking this through when I picked the pattern - do you see all those color changes? Yeah, you change colors every 3, 5, or 8 rows throughout the pattern. That translates to roughly 4 million color changes. Which is annoying enough when you are working it, but then when you are done? That's right, 4 million ends to weave in. Plus it was all double crochet (I think, I don't have the pattern in front of me. It was all one stitch whichever it was) so it was pretty boring. Actually, as annoying as the color changes were, they were the only thing to break the monotony. It took me a few months to do the crocheting since I could only force myself to do a certain number of repeats each night. When I finally got the crocheting done, I wove in all 4 million ends.

Then I looked at the pattern. Then I tried to form it into the circle. I realized the pattern didn't tell you to weave in the ends until after you sewed the circle together. I'm not positive if that's why it was incredibly hard to get it to form into a circle, or if that's just the way the pattern was. But, I spent a few nights trying to get it to go which ended in tears with me thinking the months of work were for naught. A co-worker who is a long time knitter suggested wetting it down to sort of block it into shape while forming it and sewing it. Thank the FSM that worked. I wet the whole thing down in the sink then kept spraying it with the BadKitty spray bottle while I worked. I thought I had it done and left it to dry overnight (pinned to a towel). Nope. The next day the center spiral (the hardest part to spiral) was all bumpy. I had to cut the thread holding that part together and try resewing it. After that, it came out pretty good and I just stopped looking at it. I knew I would be the harshest critic and it looked as good as it was going to get. So there it is! I do really like it and would like one for myself but won't be subjecting myself to it anytime soon.

Oh, one more pattern change - the outer edge you crochet after it is sewn together was supposed to be done in pattern with the color changes. Unt uh. I was done with the color changes so I did the whole trim in black.