Short-row Half-circle Hearth Rug

I picked this handspun yarn from the local yarn shop a couple of years ago with the intention of knitting and felting a bag. It sat, and sat, and sat.

And then I decided to make a hearth rug for in front of the wood stove. I wanted to make a half-round rug, initially planning on having four "pie" slices, one in each color.

blue. yellow. turquoise. red.

I knit up one of the slices a few times but didn't love how the the shaping was turning out, or how wide the rug would end up being. I also decided I wanted to stripe the colors, rather than have big blocks of color. I ended up settling on a short-row pattern, alternating the yellow and red with the turquoise and blue. This gave me more control over how wide the rug was, and let me play around with the striping early on as I worked my way around the half-circle.

half-circle

This was the perfect TV-watching project; bulky yarn and size 13 needles meant fewer stitches, garter stitch meant I knit every row, repeated stripe pattern meant I only had one color going at a time, and short rows made the project feel like each ray was done quickly. I probably could have knit this in one binge-watching session, but ended up spreading it out over a few nights.

rays of sunshine

It's super soft and squishy, and looks a little bit like a sunset, with the rays of sunshine against the blue sky. I carried the yarn around the outside, knitting the first stitch of every row with all four colors which added a natural rounded edge that I like the look of.

And it's Zoe-approved, which is clearly the most important thing.

She kind of fits on the rug.