What To Do With an Impulse Purchase?

Sometimes I can get out-of-control crafty.  Here is a recent example:  A few weeks ago, when I received the monthly edition of the email newsletter from 'Crazy as a Loom', I ordered a  box of twelve pounds of loopers ... completely on impulse, without any concept of how many loopers are actually IN a twelve-pound box.  What are loopers, you ask?  

Loopers are slices of socks that some of us are most familiar with as the raw material for potholders woven on a small square loom.

I made this potholder on the evening that the box of loopers arrived in the mail.

Twelve pounds of loopers are WAY too many for one person to use to make only potholders, so I had to come up with another use for them.  (Hilary, at Crazy as a Loom, chains loopers together and weaves them into rugs.)  I don't have a loom, nor do I know how to use one.  One day last week, I had a brainstorm ... I could probably chain the loopers together and use them to CROCHET a rug!  

I am using a random mix of light and dark colors as I chain the loopers together.

You won't be surprised when I tell you that I have had a LOT of help while I chain the loopers together and crochet the rug.

Alice likes to sift through the loopers in the box, or sit in my lap as I chain them together while we sit on the floor.  (I do this on the floor because the loopers shed and it's easier to vacuum a spot on the rug than it would be to clean the fluff off the sofa.)

See the colorful bits of fluff on Alice's back?

Dorothy is not so helpful ... she steals the loopers, one by one, and carries them off to play with them ... eventually either stuffing them under the edge of a rug or abandoning them in random places throughout the house.

Maggie hangs out on the rug when I'm not working on it.

I estimate that I have used about half of the box of loopers so far, and the rug is about two-and-a-half feet wide and four feet long.  My plan (if you can call it that) is to keep chaining loops and crocheting until the box is empty.  I don't know how big the rug will be when I'm finished, nor do I know where I will use it ... this depends on its ultimate size, I guess.

I'm not using a published pattern to do this.  I am working single crochet in the back loops of the previous row, using a large crochet hook (size P) spiraling around and around, increasing stitches on the curved parts of each round as necessary to keep the rug flat.  (This will make sense to you if you crochet.  If you don't, I probably just confused the crap out of you.)  The green plastic clips you see on the rug are to mark the places where I want to work my increases ... it's either eight or ten stitches per round, and I evaluate the rug after every round or two to make adjustments as I go.  The spot with two clips marks the beginning of the round.

I am so happy with how this rug is turning out so far.  The random mix of bright colors makes me smile just looking at it!  If you are interested in doing something like this yourself, I will answer any questions and help you however I can.  (Anyone with basic crochet skills can do this!)

Crazy as a Loom is the name of Hilary Cooper-Kenny's blog and her weaving studio in northeastern New York.  She uses antique looms to weave beautiful rugs and other objects.  I have followed her blog for years, and I have come to think of her as one of the family.  (Click HERE for her blog, and HERE for her online store.)