Day 156 and Rings

This was a lot more fun than it sounds. One would think that having to make each ring separately would be a complete pain. One would think that sewing all the ends in would drive a body mad. One would think an impatient person like me couldn't handle it.

One would be incorrect. With tapestry needle in hand, it was actually a lot faster and a lot less annoying than I anticipated. And since you can crochet over the beginning yarn end, there is actually only one end per ring.

As for the actual construction, I just improvised a pattern, but this motif is quite old and usually called something along the lines of "wedding ring stitch." I used a size M hook and doubled simply soft to make it happen, changing colors at random for each ring. Getting the right proportions between the size of the ring, the number of stitches and the number of beginning chains took some ripping and re-hooking.

Chain 14, join with slip to beginning chain. Chain 3, 26 dbl crochet into the ring. Join the final stitch to the beginning chain by sewing it in place and hiding the end.

All the rings are made the same way, but before joining the chain, thread it through the previous ring. The trickiest part is making sure all the rings face the same way. Always thread the chain in the same direction (eg. back to front) and it'll come out fine. The outer edge I fudged a bit, but in general, I did 6 DC into each ring along each edge and (DC3, DC inc) 3 times, DC3 for each end ring. You might find fudging to be the best course of action as well. It's a very organic stitch, but I think the results are worth it.