Using Every Last Scrap Matters

Cast your mind back to January 2024.  

I'd finally completed a crochet project of epic proportions and celebrated by prancing round the garden in the snow!  You can read all about it here.

The Leaves and Lace Blanket pattern by Haafner Linssen

After crocheting 27 hexagon motifs and 18 half hexagons of Scheepjes XL cotton/acrylic yarn, then joining them all together, I was left with these little nubbins of each colour.

Such a colourful bowl of leftovers deserved to be made into something.  

I consulted this book at my local library and pored over the beautiful crochet patterns.

After settling on the Hexagon Daisy Bathmat (pictured right) from Susan Pinner's enticingly colourful book, I proceeded to inadvertently ignore the pattern and go my own sweet way.  

My hexagon motifs don't quite look like the ones in Susan's bathmat.

Undeterred, I ploughed on regardless and made even more motifs.  I crocheted in spare moments between other projects, even crocheting in the car whilst waiting for something or someone.

To even out their wibbly edges, I dampened the hexagons and pinned them into shape.

When I'd made as many motifs as the leftovers would allow, I arranged them into a pleasing pattern.

The irony of wanting to use up as much leftover yarn as possible is having to buy more yarn to finish a project meant to be made entirely from leftovers!  

So I found myself back at my favourite yarn shop purchasing more Scheepjes XL to join the motifs together.  I chose this vibrant peridot shade to coordinate with our bathroom flooring. 

I started this project on 21st January 2024 and crocheted with great enthusiasm and enjoyment, probably working on it most days over the course of  the following month.  The end was in sight as one motif was crocheted to its neighbour and the individual components began to resemble a bathmat.

Then I hit a snag.  And all progress stopped.  And I didn't touch it... for... a... whole... year.

Just like that, I'd fallen out of love with it.

....______________...

Fast forward to March 2025, I began to crochet a blanket for my niece.   

But knew in my heart I should really finish the bathmat first.

I finally took time to examine the sticking point - a red motif with one side which I hadn't been able to join up to the one next to it.  I realised I'd made a mistake.  As is usually the case, the solution was quick and  simple and I unravelled the red row and re-made the motif, correctly this time, enabling it to match up to its neighbour.

After that I was on a roll.  In just under two weeks, all the hexagons were joined together.

Pinning out the dampened mat again helped smooth out its wiggly edges.

Just as my bathmat was reaching completion, we decided to change the flooring in the bathroom!  

The flooring on the left had been in place since 2008 when we extended our home, and it was time for a re-fresh.  We both loved the citrus vinyl chosen by our daughters all those years ago when they got their very own bathroom in the extension.  It's a small room with plain white walls so we chose to update it with an equally colourful replacement!  

I hope the girls will love it when they come home to visit.

Here's my use-every-scrap bathmat in situ.

Fabulous new flooring from For The Floor And More