It's A Cover Up!

While looking for something to stand on the other day, so I could take photos of the Walled Garden Blanket, I came across this little stool.

It is quite a nice shape and has a comfy padded top, although it has no cover.

And look at that price tag!!! My mum is the Queen of Bargains, I would never find something like this for just £2! 

I know I wouldn’t, as I had been looking for a little round stool for myself for some time. Why had I wanted a little round stool?

Because I wanted to crochet a little round cover for one!

This was random yarn from my mum's stash again, although the colours are similar to some Stylecraft Special DK colours, if that helps: the blue is very like Bluebell, the minty-greeny colour is rather like Aspen. The yellow is like Citron, and finally the purpley-mauvey colour is similar to Wisteria (I think a nice pink would also look good instead of the purpley colour).

I have no pattern to offer for this I’m afraid, as I simply made it up as I went along, adjusting as necessary. I can tell you though that almost the whole thing is made with UK Treble Crochet, plus some decreases around the side, and one round of UK DC to finish off. I also have no ‘during’ photos, as I was just hooking away furiously in amongst other odd jobs I was trying to get done for my mum before she got home from work, including setting up the new TV I had bought her as an early Christmas present! (I won’t be around for Christmas… :(  )

I did learn a few things that surprised me though, so I will share those with you instead :)

You can’t always increase methodically! I was really surprised to find that when I increased regularly for each round, it went all rippley and not at all nice and flat. I ended up having to unravel a few rounds on plenty of occasions, and replace them with new rounds keeping the stitch count the same. In this stool cover there are 3 rounds of the same stitch count, followed by 4 rounds of the same stitch count!

Unravel if you need to! I have definitely been guilty in the past of trying to make stitches fit when really they don’t. I hate the idea of unravelling my hard work, but it definitely pays off. As soon as it ripples up, unravel and re-hook your round(s) with a lower stitch count – even if it ends up having the same stitch count as the previous round!

Decrease to keep it straight! I thought that once I got near to the edge of the stool, I could start hooking up the sides in a very straightforward way. I hooked the first ‘side’ round around the actual stitches, so that I was making a 90° angle. As this was a teensy bit smaller than the diameter of the actual stool, I thought that it would stretch slightly to make a really nice tight fit. This did not happen!! This first round actually fell out to lie flat with the initial circle part of the cover! Gnaaarrgh!! I ended up having to make so many decreases to get the side to actually be a side, and not just more top… I decreased by 8 stitches on each of two rounds. And then by 12 stitches on each of the next two rounds. And then by 24 stitches on the next round!

Double Crochet is your friend! For the final round, I did a row of UK DC all the way round; I kept the same stitch count as the previous round, but kept the tension really tight. This sort of pulled in all those slightly loose Trebles below, and gave a nice firm structure to that final round. This also allows the side to ever-so-slightly hook under the stool, helping to hold the cover in place :)

So, although I had to make the whole thing pretty much twice over, after all the frogging and rehooking, I am quite pleased with the result! And my mum is really happy with it too. Now I just need to wait until we are settled-in in Australia, and I can continue to look out for a stool of my own!