Well I have written this post like 3 times now but the original photos were lost and bla bla bla other excuses that no one cares about. Anyway I made Lottie a matching mini rug so I could retake the photos and here we are!

You need yarn and a large crochet hook. I’m using some fuzzy chenille yarn and a 5.5mm afgan hook.

Start with a foundation chain which is as long as you want the rug to be.

Chain 2 more.

The basis of this entire rug is a single crochet stitch with an extra long loop hanging out the back. When you have so many loops they form a thick shag pile.

So poke the hook through the 3rd chain.

Wrap the yarn around your left index finger to form a big loop.

Use your hook to pull the tail end of that loop through the chain.

Now you have one large loop at the back of the chain and two regular loops on your needle!

Now wrap the yarn around the hook.

Use the hook to pull the last loop through the other two. Now you have one big loop at the back and one on the hook. Done and ready for next stitch.

So basically you’re just doing a single crochet stitch over and over again but at the beginning you’re wrapping the yarn around your finger so there’s a huge loop hanging out the back. I’m thinking it might be easier to explain this in a video!

Repeat this stitch until you reach the end of the row. It will feel awkward at first but it gets much easier. When you reach the end of the row chain two, turn and go back the other way. This time the loops will be on the wrong side so after each stitch move the big loop to the front and begin the next stitch.

If you want a less thick pile you could always just do a regular single crochet every second row but I love how plush this version is:

After a few rows you’ll get something like this with a flat back and a bobbly front:

And eventually something like this…

Then this…

And like 6 billion years later something like this:

Once you get to this length you’re half way there! This is why we called this the 365 Day Rug!

And that’s really it, I ended up doing mine in two sections because I wasn’t sure how much yarn I would have but it worked out well because even at this size it was completely unruly to work on and a real pain in the butt. I probably wouldn’t make one of these again unless I was going to do it in lots of small sections. It gets far too heavy to work on something this big!

Anyway I’m glad this tutorial is out of the way finally, let me know if you try it out or have any questions!

You need two colours of yarn, I used pink and white.

I doubled the yarn over and reballed it for a thicker look. Is it weird that I find reballing yarn to be one of the most relaxing things ever?

The yarn I used is 8ply and the hook size is 5.5mm.

They way that this spiral is worked is that you will be working with both colours at once and going around the edge of the piece one at a time.

Start by casting on the pink.

Do 5 chains.

Single crochet into the first chain so it makes the start of the spiral.

Now we need to add in the next colour. To do this, single crochet into the same stitch that you just single crocheted the pink into. Do one more single stitch into that hole with the white and then do the next SC (single crochet) into the pink stitch after that. You should have 3 white stitches now and the pink and white should cross over and form kind of like a yin-yang symbol.

Continue the line of white by SC into the top of the pink row. Continue until you only have one pink stitch left. Every 3 stitches, do two stitches into the same hole, this will make sure the spiral stays flat rather than being a big weird ice cream cone shape in the end!

After you’ve gone as far as you can with the white, pick up the pink yarn again and continue SC, this time you should be going into the top of the white stitches. Every 3 stitches, do two in the same hole so it stays nice and flat. Continue until you’ve got one white stitch left.

Now pick up the white and continue the pattern of SC on top of the pink, and 2 in one hole every 3. Once it gets a little bigger, you won’t need to double up every 3 stitches so change to every 5. The further out you get the less often you will need to double up, so use your judgement as to what you need to do to keep the shape.

And that’s it, just keep alternating between stitching the white and the pink around.

Eventually you will get something like this! Finish the circle by tying off the white and continuing the pink around past the end of the white so it has a few stitches into the previous row of pink.

Now make a back piece which is the same size as the first circle.

Here they are front and back!

Next you will need to join them together. Pick one of the colours which you want the side to be (I went with pink) and SC a row around the edge of the spiral. 

To give it a ring around the edge and make the side stick up, crochet into the inner loop of the stitches rather than the outer.

I decided to make it 5 stitches wide, you can do whatever suits you.

Now stitch the back piece on. You can either sew it on or crochet it on. I went with crochet and I did it by doing another pink row and crocheting directly into the white holes.

Leave a little gap and don’t tie it off yet because we need to stuff it!

Once it’s stuffed just finish up the hole.

Finished!

It can be pretty hard to finish crochet when you have a very mischievous puppy!

I can’t believe how little Lottie looks here *_*

When you finally finish the pillow and put it down for the last photograph you’ll notice that the second you turn to get the camera it’s been usurped by the puppy.

Then when you tell her to get off she’ll make this face at you… -_-

I decided to put a stitch through the middle of mine to make the shape more interesting.

At least all of that hard work was appreciated!

Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you give it a try!