My oldest son recently celebrated a birthday, and I have yet to send him a birthday present, in large part because I have yet to make it.

I had wanted to make him a wool rug from a pattern (Kelim Carpet) that I found in Melody Griffith’s book, Crocheted Afghans, but because he has pets in his household, he wanted it made from a fiber that would be more easily washed. To that end, I bought bulky weight yarn in both acrylic and cotton, and this past week, I began work on an acrylic rug based not on the Kelim Carpet pattern I had found, but instead based on a picture of a rug I saw at the fiber fair I attended last week.

In an attempt to make at least one rug, I used the 9.00mm Boye hook pictured here:

with the bulky acrylic four-color twist pictured here:

and managed to complete the four single crochet circles pictured here:

Initially, the work went slowly as the hook would catch on the yarn, but somewhere in the middle of the third circle, I remembered my recently purchased lotion, Gloves in a Bottle. It is a standard trick to use lotion on aluminum crochet hooks to improve the glideability, and I figured that since the lotion worked so well on my hands, it might have the same amazing results when applied to my aluminum hook; I was not disappointed:

Once I had put the lotion on my hook (with special attention to the area of the hook known as the throat) the work began to go much more quickly. I have my suspicions that the secret ingredient in the lotion that get such astounding results from the hook is the dimethicone, but whatever it is, it works!

Tomorrow morning, after I have had enough coffee to rout me from my sleep stupor, I will resume work on this belated gift and work to transform the yarn into a pet-friendly throw rug.