Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Thursday 15 November 2012

What I have been up to recently

  As you may recall, I have been slowly learning to crochet. Recently I decided to crochet a rag rug.



I have loads of old, worn or holed cotton tee shirts, which are no good for charity donation, so I keep for making rags. I had a look and sorted out some in bright colours to make into cotton yarn
 


 I cut strips about an inch wide and tied them together.


because the fabric is 100% cotton all the trimmings can go in the compost!





And then I started to crochet... using a 15 mm crochet hook


As you can see, it is going to be a good sized rug! It keeps me occupied during these dull wet days where I can't do much in the garden.

I will keep you all posted as to how I get on :-)

7 comments:

  1. I want to learn how to do this? I have a whole bunch of old flannel shirts that I'm 'collecting'.

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  2. Hello DFW and welcome.

    I made a foundation chain of about 75 stitches - I just made it as large as I wanted the width of the rug to be - and then I used UK Double crochet in rows, back and forth, - it is about 4 feet long now and VERY colourful :-)

    The knots merge in with the holes in the crochet loops and it feels fine under foot, and I am very pleased with it :-)

    Hope this helps you to get started.

    Flannel shirts would work for this I think, as would fleece ( spin polyester type) blankets - they can be found very cheap in charity shops here so I am going to make one of these as a cat bed, next.

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  3. Ah - me too. But, I've been dyeing old tshirts and cutting them up, I've not yet got to the crocheting bit.

    One tip I can pass on - you don't need to knot the strips as you can cut the material into a continuous strip.

    eg http://www.craftpassion.com/2009/05/recycle-tutorial-making-of-t-shirt-yarn.html/2

    There is another way of doing it where you cut from the left then cut from the right too, but I think this way gives better results.

    Also, if you have a rotary cutter (as used for patchwork) it makes very light and quick work of it.

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  4. Just found a better tutoirial...

    http://www.graciousrain.com/2010/09/28/t-shirt-yarn-tutorial/

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  5. Good on you! Crochet is pretty easy-peasy, I'm brushing up on more intricate work - let me know if you need yarn! LOL. Still spinning plenty.

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  6. Oyas Daughter, I have been doing more detailed crochet as well as the rug - pictures will follow in due course :-)

    BW thanks for the tip, I was actually doing that as well as knotting but I was using some parts of the t shirt where I could not cut in a continuous length.

    I hope the knots don't spoil the final effect, though!

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  7. I just recently started crocheting, and this sounds like a great project! I'm in the middle of granny square time now, but this is going on the list for next. Yours looks great!

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