Crocheted Rag Rug Tutorial: Part Four

I finished my scrap rag rug this morning so I'll show you just two more small things you need to know (not that you couldn't have figured them out yourself) as the last steps to making your own crocheted rug.

Decide where you want to end your rug. I chose to put an all-blue border as the last round of my rug.

So I single crocheted right up to the starting blue single crochet.

Then I cut my fabric strip leaving about a 6" tail.

Next I'll put my hook through the starting blue loop, the one my left index finger is on in the picture above.

Hook is through that loop.

Hook your fabric tail and bring it through that first blue loop.

And then continue pulling the fabric right on through the top loop of the last single crochet you made. (The one that was on your hook.)

Continue pulling that 6" tail all the way through the loop.

This forms kind of a slip knot. Pull it tight.

Now we're going to flip the rug over and weave in that tail over and under any stitch loops you choose on the wrong side of the rug. (We're looking at the wrong side of the rug in the above picture.)

Weave it in and around through loops until you have only a small length of the tail left. Snip it off with scissors.

Now is the time to deal with the tail you've had on the back of the rug since first making the chain stitches we started with.

Weave this tail in on the back of the rug in the same way you just did the ending tail. Hidden and gone!

Then I took my rug to the ironing board and gave it a good steam pressing to coax it into a nice oval shape and to flatten any lumpy and bumpy sections.

Here's the finished rug. Final measurement is 23-12/" x 34-1/2".

I'm very happy with the way this "no rhyme or reason", scrappy colored rug turned out. I hope you'll be pleased with yours, too.

View on the Roof

The situation on our roof was a smidge more "extreme" than I was led to believe (ahem) . . .

. . . but not disasterous.

Now, I'll give you one guess what happened when we got ourselves and all of the tools we thought we'd need up on the garage roof this afternoon. Yupper, the dang wind started blowing like heck again.

Papa Pea made the executive decision that we were not going to work that high off the ground in the frigid weather fighting gusts of nasty wind, so we did some temporary (please, please, please hold!) repairs until tomorrow when it's forecast to be much warmer and more condusive to remaining upright and working on a slanted roof. (How do people with metal roofs do it?)

Mother Nature, We Need To Talk

No, I'm not going to go on a rant this morning about our lack of snow this winter. (Although if I let myself, I could get stirred up about that.)

What I want to comment on is the increasing frequency of horrendous winds our area has been experiencing in the last couple of years.

The howling started again last night after dark and went until . . . ? I don't know as we both finally passed out in bed around midnight (although I have a fuzzy remembrance of Papa Pea getting up once after that and saying he was going to sit up a while to make sure everything was okay), and there was no wind this morning when we got up.

Why were we up until midnight? The chimney of the wood stove in the garage/workshop area blew down. Well, fortunately not all of it toppled because we had a good fire going in the stove at the time. Enough section of pipe was left on the roof that we were in no fire danger but we did lose the top two sections.

We knew the tall chimney was vulnerable to winds so earlier this winter we bought and Papa Pea installed a special chimney brace/support kit. It didn't hold as Mother Nature unleashed her high winds last night.

More to come later today when we go out to take pictures and put things back together.

So much for our Sunday day off . . .

* * * * *

I was about to post the above early this morning when we got a call from our friend B saying she had a large cedar tree blow down on the back of her house last night. It managed to hit all three of the roof lines. Her main concern was getting it off the roof without it twisting and hitting her L.P. tank. Her partner is currently out of town (feeling very frustrated he isn't home to help) and she asked if we could come lend a little assistance. So we threw what tools we thought might come in handy in the truck and took off.

After trimming off all the branches, it looked more manageable. That's Papa Pea with chainsaw and B leaning against the stump that was left. The tree was leaning toward an open space and shouldn't (famous last words) have hit the house but it must have twisted in the wind as it came down.

We're just now back home and happy to say the mission was accomplished. Now a little lunch and we'll go tackle our fly-a-way chimney.

Anybody Wanna Frog?

Years ago I was in a fabric shop with my list of needed supplies. Although I am not an impulse buyer, the second I saw the little stuffed frog up on a display shelf, I knew I had to have him.

Or rather I had to have the pattern to make him.

This finished fella is about 12" high and takes 16 oz. of fiberfill for stuffing.

All the pattern pieces and instructions are on this yard of material.

The pattern has lived for too long in my To Do box so I'd like to give it away to one of you.

Enter your name in the drawing by leaving me a comment on this post. Of course, I have to make the process interesting so in your comment, tell us all if your mother sewed. Can be as simple as a "yes" or "no" or you can elaborate if you wish.

My mom was a whiz at the sewing machine but not in the traditional give-me-a-pattern-and-some-fabric-and-I'll-sew-something way.

She worked outside the home in a professional setting and needed to dress nicely every day. However, she couldn't buy clothing "off the rack" because it would never fit her figure. She had a large bust and hips . . . but a very small waist. Although her figure was ample, it had the advantage of being very, very hourglass in shape. Because of this, she would purchase two or three outfits, bring them home and go directly to the sewing machine where she would proceed to tear the clothing apart and make the alterations necessary for them to fit her properly. And she was very good at it, too. She also had the talent for making slipcovers (with no pattern, of course) and reupholstering furniture.

So, wanna have this little project come to your house? Froggie would make a great friend for your toddler, an adorable gift for a newborn or a fun present for someone who has a thing for frogs!

If you'd like a chance to win this giveaway, leave a comment. I'll close comments Monday night, the 13th, when I shut off my computer . . . usually around 8 or 9 o'clock . . . and draw the winner on Tuesday.

Ribbit-ribbit-ribbit.

Where's My Long Underwear?

We're battening down the hatches and putting an extra log on the fire tonight. The forecast is for a temp of -13 degrees tonight with a bit of a wind (of course) giving us a wind chill of 25-40 below tomorrow morning. (I always think of the kids waiting for the school buses in that kind of weather. Brrrr!)

A similar night is expected for Friday into Saturday morning also. Saturday is expected to warm up to 11 degrees above during the day.

I don't think we have to go anywhere off the property during the next couple of days so we'll wear triple layers and our ear-flap hats when outside doing chores.

(I think it's probably a good thing we don't have to go off the property looking like this, don't you?)

Is it winter now?

Supplies Running Low . . .

I went searching into the bottom of my freezer this morning looking for another container of fresh-frozen chives.

Oh, no! This is the. last. container! This ain't gonna last until the chives are up this spring, folks. I thought for sure I had more left than this one lonely little cup-size container.

They still look about as good as when I harvested them last May. Dried chives are super-expensive to purchase and with the two abundant chive plants I have in the garden, it's silly of me not to preserve them each year for winter's use.

I tried drying (dehydrating) them once, but what a chore that was. (Maybe that's why they're so expensive?) So I gave a go at freezing them and it's worked out so well that I put up lots of containers of them each spring. However, . . . and oops. I did not do enough this year. Note to self: This spring do about twice as many chives for the freezer.

One other little item I found while freezer diving today . . .

Near OCD labeler and dater of freezer packages that I am, I've always wondered how people could talk of coming up with packages of "mystery meat" from the depths of their freezers. But . . . um, well, uh, . . . seems I've had it happen to me. I frequently package up small amounts of meat like this because we don't eat much meat. I use it more for flavoring rather than a main entree. This package had no label, no date, no indication of what it might be. I let it defrost and upon examination . . . well, I'm still not sure what it is.

I think it looks most like chopped liver but if so, it was no where near the correct "filing" place for raw meat. Guess our granddogs will be getting a little treat of "mystery meat" soon.