This Week in October~

The Second Graders went to Riley's Farm in Oak Glen, California. We are doing a historical studies of the colonists of early America.

We participated in activities such as loom weaving, grinding apples for cider,



 

churning butter, dipping candles,














writing with quills and ink,















 

and trying to stay cool in the 95 degree heat wave we had this week (it was over 100 at home). I felt bad for the folks in their heavy costumes ~

 We had toast with apple butter and sorghum molasses as a treat at school the next day!




 

 I finished this rug for a friend, better not say too much as she might figure it out, ahem, but it's done in time, yippee! With a few of you asking about the how to's on these rugs, I'm sharing the simplicity of their construction.

On the blue and green rugs I used cotton yarn, the weight that you use to make the little washcloths or dish cloths, three threads at a time.

I used one skein of yarn from start to finish to keep the unity of color in it, but I was using up scraps of yarns for the most part.

It's all single crochet.






This multi colored rug is all acrylic, and I used 4 threads. The full skein I used was a variegated one that went from burgundy to hot pink, and I was using a beige to try to tone it down a bit-!



 The hook is a size P.  It came packaged with a larger Q hook, the size I use in rag rugs.

I chained 20 to 30 loose chains, and single crocheted around both sides. I added 3 or 4 stitches to the ends each time around, unless I felt it was looking ripply, and then I'd go around once and not add any stitches at all!



I would also put the added stitches at different intervals on the ends, never just in the center of the end, so that the holes didn't show up in a pattern.

Edited to add:

1.                                                     2.                                                 3.

I was asked how I tied on the color/yarn changes. 

1. I knot about a 3 inch tail from both the leader and the ender thread.
2. add the next stitch
3. and pull so the knot is tucked inside the stitch (it doesn't always work out perfectly!) The tails are laying along the edge of the rug-
4. and are covered over with your stitches as you go   
5. until you don't see them any more! By leaving the tails long, they are well  anchored.

       

4.                                                    5.

See? not a tough "THIS IS HOW YOU MUST DO IT" set of rules.

Here are three of Mom's rugs. 

This one is mostly white acrylic 

with a chocolate brown 

cotton crochet thread 

(what I call doily weight), 

I think she used 4 threads.

( I'm sorry I didn't wash before pictures, they're getting washed now!!!)

Can you see the variety of thread weights in this rug?

These first two were gifts 

Mom recently made,

on our trip home this summer.

 This is one of my favorites, it is all doily weight, 8 threads at once! This rug is about 8 years old, before Mom lost so much of her vision...

And seriously, Mom uses Anything and mixes Everything, including the smaller doily threads in with acrylics, and they turn out kinda cute.


Hope you all are having a good weekend! I still need to get to my studies, and next time, I'll share what Ginny and I did today...! Here's the hint ~

 

"This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24