Happy #NeedleworkMonday! My ripples of clean happiness...

Happy #NeedleworkMonday craftpals!!

(Thank you again to @crosheille and @crystalize for starting this wonderful growing community with amazing crafters! 😍😘)

This week, I would like to share with you a little something.... Guess what this is?

It is......
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.....not a scarf (although it can be )....
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.....It is actually...
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.. a floor mat for the-back-of-a-fish-tank 😁

The fishies are very hyper fishies (each about 1 ft long) and every now and then, they would splash water, especially when it is feeding time (imagine fishies in full excitement). This causes the narrow-part-of-the-floor-between-the-fish-tank-and-the-wall to have watermarks and because the narrow-part-of-the-floor-between-the-fish-tank-and-the-wall is narrow but visible in the living room, it is hard to clean and the sight of it is not that pleasant to the eye:

I decided to use the cheapest but hardy acrylic yarns I have (since it is going to be on the floor). I combined 3 yarns because each yarn is of fingering thickness, uses 3mm crochet hook and I needed to crochet something thick. Combining 3 yarns make it a 5mm crochet hook thickness (sorry, am not sure if I am saying all this correctly).

While deciding which stitch to use, I came across a youtube video for a crochet rose bud stitch by Nati:

and thought it would be quite fun to crochet. I decided to try it for the mat, although it is meant for a scarf 😜

The stitch is quite solid and cute and because I used variegated yarns in grey, white, blue and turquoise shades, it creates some sort of a ripple effect.

The pattern uses chains of 3s plus 2 and combines single crochets, half double crochets and double crochets into a single chain, after which we skip 2 stitches and repeat until we reach the last chain, we just do a single crochet into the last chain, chain 2 and then turn to repeat the pattern.
e.g. for my floor mat:

1. I chained 9 + 2.
2. Then, SC into the 3rd chain, and then HDC into the same chain, and then DC.
3. Then skip 2 chains and repeat step 2.
4. At the last chain, just do a SC, chain 2 and turn.
5. Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4.
   (I hope I typed this right but you can watch the video and learn from Nati herself :)

The purpose of the floor mat:

1. To "beautify" the back-of-the-5ft-fish-tank
2. To simplify cleaning of the back-of-the-5ft-fish-tank, I just need to pull the floor mat out, give it a quick wash, dry and put it back there (the acrylic yarn is cheap, hardy, easy to wash and dry).
3. To prevent further watermarks on the floor.

So, if you have cheap yarns that you would like to get rid off use, floor mats using the rose bud crochet pattern is an interesting way to do it.

Now, I'm going to make another, but this time, as a scarf using nicer yarns :)