the next project adventure begins!

I’ve been mulling over crocheting this beautiful road play mat

that I spied a while back on Pinterest.  (Actually one of Zoe’s friend’s showed it to me, knowing I would like it- thanks Kirsty!)  But I had a small problem, when I tried a sample square using her pattern mine turned out a rectangle every time.  Well obviously I could delete rows untiI it was a square again but I was worried the road sections wouldn’t match up unless I sorted this problem out so I’ve been playing with a few ideas, and finally I think I’ve sorted it!  I’ve also decided to slightly adapt the squares- I couldn’t really see the point in having modular squares that were fixed (sewn) together, so I’m going to try buttons and loops so the whole mat really is modular.  The child can assemble the design and the adult playmate can help button the pieces together.

This is a plain grass square which will have coloured flowers attached to it.  But see- it’s a square!  11cm wide and long.  I do this by crocheting 20 HDC stitches and 13 rows (starting with 22 chains + (2 x 4 chains for button loops)= 30 chains)

I don’t quite know why she only crochets 18 HDC stitches and does 15 rows to make hers square, but I’m not going to sweat it, just adapt.

The next problem I had was when I crocheted the first straight road square using my adjusted stitches, it turned out the straight road square was bigger than the plain square.  hmmm.  I realised it was because the black and white yarn I had were slightly thicker than the green yarn I was using.

So I had another idea to try- use my 3.5mm hook on the green sections, and use a 3mm hook when using the black and white yarns.

perfect!  So now I am on my way.  It’s such an exciting project- you should make one too!  I really hope the button idea works out, but if not, I can always just sew them together anyway.

We had my nephew and nieces over Friday night and Saturday for a bit of fun for all, we visited the Railway Museum as it was too wet for a playground, and that was great.  They loved going around on the train every 1/2 hour, and inbetween climbing into old carriages and watching miniature trainset etc. 

And that was another good day.