This past Sunday I set to work making a second crochet pet mat, but rather than working in a circle or square, I instead used the popular African flower motif to create a hexagon pet mat.
Crocheting with an 8.0 mm hook and two strands of Red Heart Super Saver yarn in a variety of my favorite colors, I started by making the central motif and then adding rounds to it unit I had a crochet hexagon that measured about 16″ x 16″:

Having gotten that far, I was not exactly certain what to do next. After several missteps, I finally came up with a solution and began “squaring off” four of the six hexagon sides by crocheting (for lack of a better term) decreasing triangles. Eventually, I had something that was a bit more like a rectangle in shape, and I then worked a couple of rounds of double crochet stitches to complete it.
Here is an overview of the result:

and here is a detail:

The resulting pet mat is not exactly what I envisioned, but I love the way it turned out, and I hope that it brings comfort and solace to a pet in need of a home.
