While I am anxious to felt the basket of flowers I am working on, my dog and the weather conspired to prevent my progress on this project today.

The dog allowed me to sleep last night which meant that not only was I well-rested and ready to face the day, so was he.

This necessitated that I budget more time for dog-walking and a puppy play-date of sorts with another neighborhood dog to help wear him out.

The weather, for its part, also created a complication as result of a high temperature that reached only 52ºF.

It was too cool for me to sit outside and keep an eye on the dog while he rustled in the leaves and amused himself, so we spent much of the day when we were not walking in the house where he amuses himself by watching me intently and taking advantage of those moments my vigilance fails, and he exploits those moments to find trouble he can get into.

As such, I needed a project that met the following criteria: it had to uncomplicated, it had to be interesting, and it had to use materials that I could find in my recent stash acquisition.

Enter the sushi scarf, a free crochet pattern courtesy of Cap’n Mermaiden.

I started by rummaging through the available yarns, and I found these four (and a skein of black not pictured):

While the pattern calls for 5.5mm hook, I used a 5.0mm hook as I tend to crochet loosely, and I used a color called “rose” which is lighter than the dark pink listed. My youngest son, however, thought that the rose bore a sufficient resemblance to tuna belly that it was an acceptable substitute for the specified color.

With my tools and materials spread out on a breakfast bar/counter in my kitchen, I was able to keep them both out of reach of the dog, and within and arm’s reach for me. In what seemed no time at all, I had finished the first two feet of the scarf:

Fortunately, Ms. Mermaiden’s directions indicate not only how many rows to crochet, but approximately how many inches each block of color should be. Using a tape measure to keep track of my progress, I was able to get the proportions right which resulted in this partially completed sushi scarf:

Kudos to Ms. Mermaiden for creating a simple project that is simply gratifying, simply fun, and simply everything crochet should be.