The Mayor of Emerald City

October 28, 2009 · Filed under I knit. (and crochet)

UPDATE:  I’ve now written a comprehensive pattern and tutorial for crocheting a rug like this of your very own.  You can find it here.

The Wizard of Oz is on my mind this morning, after sending off The Girl to her Preschool Halloween party not in the Dorothy costume I made for her, but the dragon costume I bought at Goodwill over the weekend for $4.99.  I had bought it as a dress-up costume, for everyday play, but realize now the folly of my timing.  This morning has been a lesson in pride-swallowing and bending to the whims, unpredictable as they are, of this 4 year old.  (Really, a DRAGON costume is not “less pretty” than Dorothy’s dress and ruby red slippers?  Really?)

Thankfully this Boy is loving the Emerald City rag rug I’ve finished, the first of two.  Perhaps you’ll remember when I first posted about the project?  Now, as I reread that, I see that I promised to keep you all updated on the progress.  Well, folks, there hadn’t been much.  Said rug, in all its urgency, was quickly replaced by Painting! and Curtains! and other third-trimester super-human feats.

And then, about a month ago, the real urgency hit:  The Boy needs to move around on the floor – the bare, hardwood, cold floor.  Better get busy with that rug.  So I pulled out the basket of greens and surveyed the scene.  I quickly realized, with some dismay, that one large 8ft by 10ft rug was really not the best solution for the layout of the living room.  (Really – what was I thinking?)  What I needed were two smaller rugs, more flexible in future rearranging schemes.  So I ripped out the crocheted part I had completed last winter in front of the fire.  A few hours of crochet time was undone in about 45 minutes.  Now, before you gasp too loudly, you should know that the most time-consuming part of the process is not in the crocheting, but in cutting the fabric into 1″ strips.  So that work was not lost – as I unraveled it, I rewound the rags into giant balls to re-crochet, this time into a round rug.  And about a month later, I think it’s done, at about 5ft in diameter.  What fun it’s been, too, crocheting it.  A little here, a little there, it’s so gratifying to work on because the progress is so dramatic – one revolution around the circle increases the diameter by about 2 1/2 inches.  Just the thing for my short knitting/crocheting attention span.

And The Boy loves it.  He hasn’t quite cracked the code of crawling yet, though I expect he will in about 10 minutes.  As soon as that happens, this small triumph of a rug will be rendered far less protective, once he leaves its cushioning confines.  Already he’s scooting to the edge, then tipping over to bonk his sweet little head on the maple floor.  I’d better stop reveling in the fruits of my labor and get going on that second rug.

Yeah, I’m talking about YOU, Boy.