Corduroy and Quilts

I am starting to get somewhere with some of my unfinished designs. This week I finally finished my knitted rug ...

This has taken me over a year to knit - 150 small squares! - but I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. I'm calling it Corduroy as the deeply textured ripples are like huge corduroy stripes. For this pattern I developed a technique involving swapping between two sizes of needle and joining the rolls to the square as you go. I know that makes no sense at all but if you download the free pattern, you'll see what I mean.

I must say that I think the edging is quite clever too, even if it did take me most of last weekend to work out how to do it. It's a knitted on I cord - simple but enough to tame the edges of this beast.

Should you not feel the need for a knitted rug you could use the pattern to make a blanket. I think it would be lovely as a child's play mat; it's almost padded and little fingers would love all that texture. It could be knitted with scraps of leftover yarn too.

I rather like the back of the knitting too which is perfectly flat.

I'm now halfway through this year's calendar of mini knitted quilts too, having just published the June Quilt. Here are Quilts 1 - 6, January to June.

The summer months are the hardest to design I think as I can't think of so many obvious things to use. Any ideas for July and August? 

Meanwhile, I'm catching up on some other unfinished designs: a crochet blanket, another knitted blanket based on a patchwork quilt design and a lacy scarf using KintCircus yarn. Oh, and I'm still working on the big KAL patterns for Christmas and 2018 ...