Some Things Are Easier Than They Look :)

Over the past few months, I have had little time to do much of anything. My son's fiance moved in with us, mum is in the nursing home, my daughter has had a few troubles of her own and I have been unwell.
I was recently diagnosed with Diverticulitis and am in the process of waiting to hear from the hospital for an appointment with a specialist in regards to my legs. It is hereditary in our family that all the women will end up with varicose veins at one time or another in their lives, and as luck would have it (NOT!), it didn't skip me! So at some stage in the near future, I am off to have some form of surgery to rectify my legs. I'm not looking forward to it, I thought my days of surgery were well and truly over, but apparently not. But, a girl's gotta do, what a girl's gotta do to keep herself healthy and pain free :)

Anyway, I didn't set this blog up as a way to moan about my life and complain about all the things that could be better, I set this blog up as a place for me to share my love of crochet with others, so that's what I'm going to do right now :)

For a while now, I've been wanting to learn something new, I wasn't sure what it would be, until I found it. I discovered that what I wanted to learn the most was....Filet Crochet!

I've always admired the patterns I have seen, but never thought that I would be able to do something like that myself. A while back, I received a pattern for a filet crochet heart tablemat, which I loved. Of course, I stashed it away for future reference.

I had grown tired of making amigurumi's for now and didn't want to take on another afghan just yet, so I decided the time was right for me to finally sit with that pattern and see if I could in fact, master the art.

It took me a little bit to get the hang of reading the graph, but once I got it figured out, it seemed to be so easy! Why did I wait so long!!

Anyway, I finally finished the tablemat and I'm quite proud of the way it turned out :)
I used a thicker 4ply cotton and a 1.25mm hook and I love the end result.
What do you think?

I toyed with the idea of blocking it, but thought that I would leave this one "au naturale" because of the thicker cotton. It actually smooths out quite nicely when I take the time to lay it down properly, this was just done in a rush so I could get the photo taken lol.

Since finishing the mat, I decided that I needed to hunt my finer crochet cotton out of my stash and tackle another pattern. For a while now, I've had a book in my possession called "Learn To Filet Crochet In A Day", so I hunted it out and found a pattern that I liked and made a start on it.

This one is going to be blocked and framed when it's completed and I am going to hang it on the lounge room wall :) 

Here's how far I have progressed with this one...

And this is what it will look like (I hope!) when completed :) 

(it's the "Welcome" at the bottom of the picture below)

As you can see, I'm only about 1/2 way along so far, but I don't think it will take me long to complete it. The hardest part is going to be finding a frame to fit it as it is quite large.

I bought an A3 size frame in town the other day, thinking that it would fit, but it is about 2 inches too narrow. So I will have to go on the hunt again, for a bigger frame.

Anyway, that's the extent of my work at the moment, life has slowed things down a bit in the relaxation side of things, but hopefully I'll get more time to spend doing what I love soon.

Til next time :)