I spent the last week working on a rug that I finally abandoned. This rarely happens to me; I usually keep working on a design until it is correct. But this one got the best of me.

It started like all my designs do; an idea and a scheme. I'm working on the next Lovely Ladies Doily, which will be a little witch sitting on the crescent moon.

I worked for 3 days to fix the bear, and instead of starting with the witch (which will take a little longer to fix), I thought I would do a mat next to it.

I thought it would take a day, maybe two days at the most. I had the idea of ​​a five-pointed star; Each point of the star would consist of cluster stitches. The number of groups in each point will decrease once per round; 9 in the first round, 8 in the next round, etc.

until there is only one group left for the end of scoring. I wanted to put a spider web design between each point. Since Halloween will go with a doily, I would use black yarn.

I'd call it a "Midnight Star" rug. Everything sounded good and I was eager to get started. The first try didn't feel right to me, and since I only had one ball of black yarn, I ripped them all off and started over (sometimes I don't work until the project is done, just to see that I tried it).

it seems big enough so i tested in clusters. She held the mat so I added more stitches to the bottom of the cobwebs. (A mat or folded cup means you don't have enough round stitches. If it gets wrinkled, you have too many). I tried everything I could think of to get it right, but nothing worked.

I can't imagine how many times I broke that thing and started it last week. My daughter called on Friday and asked what I was working on. When I say, "Are you still working on that mat? Is it really big or something?" Finally on Sunday morning I broke it for the last time and decided to quit.

There is something I do not understand about this and I am tired of trying to understand. "Trick or Treat" is mounted on a mat. I was tired of working with all the black and wanted to add some color to it.

So yesterday, I released a new mat called "Trick or Treat" and I am happy to say that it is almost finished. But I'll save my sketch for Midnight Star and maybe I'll try again one day and finally figure it out.