What a Cute (and Destructive) Puppy!

So you’ve lovingly crocheted a gorgeous afghan and you enjoy using that afghan in the winters to help you, or someone in your family, stay warm. Or maybe you’ve received an afghan as a gift from someone else who lovingly crocheted it. And you have a new puppy who loves to chew on everything she/he gets her/his mouth on! You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? Yes, this happened to me last week. Our 6 month old puppy named “Maggie” chewed a hole in our favorite afghan. Here’s a photo of the guilty dog:

 

 

Maggie is adorable when she’s being good, playing nicely or sleeping, but she’s not so cute when she’s done something wrong, like last week when she chewed a hole in our favorite afghan. I scolded her and she knew she had done something wrong (she avoided me for about a minute, hung her head low and her tail was between her legs instead of up and wagging), but the damage was already done. So what’s a crocheter to do? Repair it, of course! Here’s a photo of the damage that Maggie did:

 

 

I designed this afghan for Crochet World magazine’s August 2010 issue (it’s called “Patchwork Squares Afghan”, in case you’re wondering). You can see the whole afghan on my Ravelry page here. I used Bernat Berella yarn and a size I (5.5mm) crochet hook for this afghan. I actually found that exact yarn and color in my stash (I’m very thankful that some was left over from the afghan itself). Once I cooled down and found the time to do the repair, I got to work on it (just a few days ago). This is how that area of the afghan looks now:

 

 

Can you see where I repaired the hole? It’s the bottom 3 rows in the center (the cleaner looking stitches). Well, the repair went so well that I decided to create a crochet class to teach others to repair their crochet projects! I’ll be teaching this class at the CGOA Conference in the very near future!

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Susan Lowman

(aka: The Crochet Architect)