The Farm Playmat

The Lion Brand Yarn company has an excellent website and IOS App.  On there, you can create an account and peruse hundreds of free patterns for both knitting and crochet.  They also have some other loom crafts, but I don't look at those.  I'm all about the crochet patterns.  I have quite a few marked in my favorites list and I've made several of them.  This particular item was one that I looked at and first thought, 'ugh, really?'  But I saved it anyway.  

Then, I decided to click the "order items" button for myself for Christmas.  I was able to order all the yarn specific to the project.  Yay, Merry Christmas to me!  I started stitching on Christmas Day and finished it on the 28th!!  

This tractor was a total pain in the booty.  Way too many pieces for a little amiguri tractor.  After finishing, I noticed a crocheted applique of a tractor that looked much better, I think I'll use that if I do the path and tractor again.

I had to sign it after all this work.  EDR 2013

One thing I'm really excited about is the stitching of all the surface pieces.  After stitching the sun and the grassy patch, I saw how it was looking on the back.  I really didn't like how the stitches came through.  After that, I took care to stitch the pieces onto the surface of the stitches on the inside of the playmat.  This is how the back looks with the path, barn, carrot patch, and pond stitched.

Here's how it is all synched up.  I made a cord instead of using the chain lengths that were recommended in the patters.  The ends of the cords are supposed to be pumpkins.  They seem more like oranges, but whatever.

After finishing the mat, the kids simply can't play together with it.  So I've started making a second mat with the extra materials.  It'll be different but still have some fun pieces.