Yarn Along: Redneck Doormat

I probably shouldn't even tell anyone about this project....if you were expecting to see pictures of a nearly completed, beautifully knitted Scandinavian-style colorwork sweater (like the one I put up for the last Yarn Along), SORRY.

That project isn't going so well - the colorwork, it turns out, changes the gauge ever so slightly, and makes the fabric not as stretchy.  After the third person I showed it off to thought I was knitting it for Rosie, I stopped and put it on some scrap yarn.  WAY too small!

No, there weren't any tears - only a numb, cold feeling of despair.  I frogged it back to the raglan increases and am only just now beyond the sleeves.  It's like I didn't even work on it at all the past three weeks.

So, to comfort myself from the utter failure of that project, I picked up this one!

What, you might say, even IS that thing?

It all began with my porch that isn't really a porch.  I looks like a porch, it is tucked up nicely under the eves and everything, but it doesn't function like a porch, because it doesn't offer the slightest protection from even the mildest of elemental forces - like falling oak leaves.  In any rain storm, everything gets soaking wet.

I've had a problem with doormats - I've gone through quite a lot over the years.  The rain, dirt, sun, wind, heat and unbelievable humidity have been the fate of many otherwise worthy mats.  My mom tried to help me out by buying me one made of strips of leather, but it lasted for a shorter time than any others, because it gave off the smell of a dead animal when it got wet.


For years now I've picked up baling twine that has somehow gotten all over the farm - we get two big lengths of it with every bale of hay.  It seems to be incredibly durable plastic, and years later can be pulled out of the soil looking dirty, but hardly worse for the wear.  I found it's endurability annoying, until one day it occurred to me that I might find some use for it. Yes, I thought.  It will be the first of my doormats to last forever!

The past several months I've collected the stuff.  Every time I found a length of it, I would tie the ends together and wind it into a ball.  Eventually I had a ball of twine the size of my head, so I began.

I like it.  I'll need a few more months worth of twine to complete the project.  I like the way the various amounts of sun-bleaching give it a variegated appearance.