Copyrights notice
You may make a carpet using my design and even sell the carpet to make lots of money:) if you make the carpet, it would be great if you e-mailed me its photo and wrote a few things about yourself, like your name and where you're from, etc...
You should
if you make this carpet and put photos of it on your blog or a website or your Facebook page, you should always clearly state where the design came from. You may not claim this design to be yours, copy this design to your website or a blog (instead, provide a link to my blog or my Ravelry account or my Facebook fanpage), reprint this design in a magazine or a book without asking me first and paying me for it. My carpet has about 190 cm in diameter and weighs about 6.7 kilos. To make this carpet you will need: approximately 1500 meters of cotton string 4 or 5 mm thick, a 9 mm crochet hook - it's the M or N size in the US, about 12 hours of your time. It doesn't really matter how much string you use, this carpet can be done in any size and you can stop making it at any time :) No matter what string you use, remember one important thing: the crochet hook needs to be twice as thick as the string! Otherwise the carpet will come out crooked. For example, if your string is 3 mm thick, the crochet hook should be 6 mm thick (in the US: size J). If you use a string of smaller thickness than mentioned above, the dimensions will decrease but I can't predict by how much. I use the same kind of string they put in sweatshirts to tighten the hood. It can be washed in an ordinary washing machine. I order my string from a factory in Poland: http://www.polimex.net/sklep/index.php?page=Product&id=676&sid=68&lang=en but I have no idea if they are willing to ship small quantities of string overseas. Another important thing: you should be sitting on the carpet while crocheting it. This way the carpet will appear as if it has already been washed and blocked - because you have been ironing it with your buttocks the whole time. If you crochet the carpet while sitting on the couch, it will come out crooked and uneven. Remember, you will never be able to wash it and block it because it's just too big!
All instructions for making this carpet have been first published in Polish on my blog: http://magiccarpetstudio.blogspot.com/2016/04/soneczny-dywan-w-cetki.html
I will use the US crochet notation throughout this tutorial.
This carpet is done in the round, but it's actually a spiral. So the rounds mustn't be closed with a slip stitch! Begin with the magic loop and then follow this diagram:
Once you have finished round #6, you should repeat one simple rule until you get bored or run out of string: \* make double crochet (dc) until you have reached the halfway point between two 2ch-spaces, make 2 ch, skip one stitch \* Of course, once you come across a 2ch-space you should make 2 dc in it. You can see that each new 2ch-space is made exactly between two 2ch-spaces from the previous round. It is also directly above the 2ch-space that was done two rounds before. So, you don't have to count any stitches and this carpet can be made to be infinitely large :)
In order to finish it with a nice smooth edge, you should only do dc's (with no 2chspaces!) in the round before last and then add 10 hdc and 10 sc to gradually decrease the height of the round. After that just add the last round of ss through the back loop:
The holes in the carpet don't necessarily need to have the same size! You can increase their size towards the end of you work, e.g. skip 2 stitches (instead of 1) and make 3 ch (instead of 2 ch). It's visible in the photo at the bottom of the previous page, that I increased the holes in such a way. In general, it's best if you make one ch more than the number of stitches skipped. If you make the Dotty Carpet please send me a photo of it with some details about yourself, like your name and where you're from. I'm curious to know how far my design travels :) www.facebook.com/MagicCarpetStudio/ www.magiccarpetstudio.blogspot.com Check out my other carpets: http://magiccarpetstudio.blogspot.com/p/portfolio.html
