Waffle Weave

As usual, real life has made blogging here rather sparse!

I have, however, actually managed to get some crafting done, in between moving my office/craft room to another room.

One of the things I recently finished, having put it aside to complete other projects, is something I intended to use as a chair seat cover.

Our cat has other ideas.

In moving back to the family farm, we are using some of the furniture that was already here, including the mish-mash of dining chairs.  All of which have big granny squares my mother made, covering the seats and some of the backs, as well.  Unfortunately, my mother did not have access to good yarn.  She also used whatever scraps were at hand.  So... they're a little hard on the eyes.

I was entertaining the thought of replacing them with different covers, all using the same yarn - blanket yarn was used in my tester - and done in a dense waffle weave stitch.

No, not waffle stitch.  Waffle weave stitch.  I found the stitch featured in a crochet magazine some time ago, and have since seen it with a different name.  I've completely forgotten what that name was.  I was, however, able to find a tutorial for a waffle weave baby blanket, so here it is.

The end result is a very thick, insulating fabric.  I ended up using the stitch to make a scarf, headband and hat set for a friend.  They are incredibly warm; perfect for the blistering cold temperatures we've had this winter!

As a note about working up a hat; the stitch can be done in the round, but the work must be turned after joining each round.  Which makes working from the bottom up, much more practical.  I normally work my hats top down.

It also helps to use a larger hook than you normally would for the yarn weight.  I couldn't really do that for the blanket yarn I used for the test chair seat cover.  I used a 10mm hook, because the next size up I have from that is 25mm, which I use mostly as a nostepinne when reballing yarn into centre pull cakes.  If I'm going to do this stitch with this yarn again, I would need to pick up some larger hooks.

I don't think I'll be doing that.  At least not to make chair seat covers.  For the cost of yarn and amount of work involved, it would make more sense to just buy a set of chair pads.  Especially since I would want to get some extra thick ones, to make it less painful for my husband to sit at the table.

I will definitely use this stitch for other things, though.  The super thick fabric it makes would be perfect for things like hot pads, using cotton yarn.  The insulating qualities makes it perfect for warm winter hats.

As for my test chair seat cover...

Looks like it's going to be a cat blanket!