Wiggly Tutorial (2)

Tutorial: Wiggly Crochet K-Town-Style
(Part 2 - Hotpad/Cushion Pattern)

Please note: This is a free pattern for your personal use. If you'd like to share this tutorial (or parts of it, like the pictures or graphic patterns), please link back to made-in-k-town. Thank you!

Welcome back to Part 2 of my Wiggly Crochet Tutorial. In Part 1 I’ve showed you some basics: the foundation mesh, some pattern examples and two alternative ways to add the ruffles. Today I'll show you the easiest way to do the following pattern and adjust it to the right size you want for your finished project:

Of course, we could just start with the foundation mesh. However, there are some problems when you complete the whole mesh first, and then start with the pattern: First, you need to do a whole lot of analyzing, calculating and measuring until you know the number of empty squares you’ll need in your mesh so that you won’t have any problems with your pattern and the desired size of your finished work. And the “desired size” is the biggest problem: When starting with the whole foundation mesh first, my cushion covers never seemed to have the size I had planned before – my theory is that the mesh stretches a little when you squeeze so many stitches in, so in the end your finished item is probably larger than you’ve actually wanted.

That’s why I start my mesh in the middle, continue in rounds and break off after a while to start with the ruffles. This way I can control the size of my work and stop when it’s large enough.

For this tutorial I work my mesh with a thin tread and a 1.25mm hook, and the ruffles with a cotton yarn (Catania) and a 2.5mm hook. If you prefer working with a thicker yarn, no problem: just pick a slightly thinner yarn and hook for the mesh and everything will be alright.

Let’s go, here’s a graphic pattern:

Begin with ch12, join with a slst to form a ring. Please note for the following rounds: Always work your dc into the specific indicated chain and not just inside the foundation ring!

Rnd 1: ch5 (counts as 1dc and ch2), skip 2 chains of your foundation ring and work a dc into the 3rd chain of your ring. Ch5 (that’s your corner) and work another dc into the same chain as before. Ch2, skip 2 ch and work a dc into the 6th ch of your ring. Ch5 (corner) and work another dc into the same chain as before. Ch2, skip 2 ch and work a dc into the 9th ch of your ring. Ch5 and work 1 dc into the same chain as before. Ch2, skip 2 ch, 1 dc into the last chain of your ring. Ch 5 and join with a slst to third chain of ch5.

Rnd 2: ch5 (counts as 1dc and ch2) and work 1dc into the dc of the previous round. Ch2 and work 1dc into the middle chain of the ch5 (corner) of the previous round. Ch5 and work another dc into the same chain as before. Continue this way and join with a slst to third chain of ch5.

Continue this pattern until your mesh has got the desired size. Again: make sure you always work your dc into the specific indicated chain and not just inside the ch5-space!!

When you’ve completed five rounds you should have a mesh with 11x11 squares looking like this:

Don’t worry if your mesh doesn’t look super-neat, you won’t see much of it later anyway! By now we could start with the first three “wiggly” rounds of our pattern, shall we? Secure the last loop of your mesh (don’t fasten off!), pick the yarn you’ve chosen for the ruffles, and just work your dc4-groups around the posts/bars with your favorite method (A or B, see Tutorial Part 1). If you have a close look at the sketch, you see that there are always “naked” bars between the ruffles, make sure you always leave those bars/posts naked while you’re working the pattern! I’ve marked our first rounds green:

I’m using method B (counter-clockwise, the right side of the dc’s facing inwards), so mine looks like this now:

It’s important that your mesh has always got one round more than you would actually need for the pattern: this makes it easier to continue the mesh later! Here’s a picture from the backside where you can see the extra-round better:

My patch is still tiny (not even a small coaster size), how about yours? I think I’ll add four more rounds of mesh, enough to make two more rounds of ruffles…

On this picture it’s clearly visible how the mesh stretches where I’ve worked the ruffles. It’s still a bit too small for a hotpad, but nevertheless I’ll leave it with this size and start the side rows of the pattern. Perhaps by now you’ve noticed how long it takes and how much yarn you need to make a whole round of ruffles – so better think twice before you make a cushion:

Mine took ages (but I think this was mainly due to the rather thin yarn I’ve used). If yours is still too small, just keep adding rounds of mesh and rounds of ruffles, the pattern is very easy to adjust, look:

 (the thick black line is the original border)

The easiest way to adjust (or design) a more elaborate pattern is to take a piece of graph paper and outline the pattern.

Now back to this one. If you’ve got your perfect size, let’s start with the side rows:

I attach my yarn at starting point B and work “downstairs” along the green bars to point A (if you use method A, just do it the other way round). At the end of the row, fasten off and start the next row. I’m finished now, it looks like this:

I’ve decided to work the side rows with white only, but of course you could change the color with every row, just like I’ve done in the middle.
For the edge I used the same yarn as for the ruffles, and just added a row of hdc’s and finished with a row of reverse sc’s. And here’s my finished little hotpad:

Congratulations to anyone who's read this long, long story until the end. I hope you liked my Tutorial and enjoy wiggling... :)