Experiment: Crocheting with Roving

Hello! Happy Friday my friends. Unfortunately, there won't be a Friday Focus today. Fortunately, there will be a funny story.

The other night I was antsy pantsy. I had been alternately working on a difficult design and doing chores all day so I wanted to have a little random fun. I dove into my Ravelry queue expecting to pick out a simple, fun project for my evening entertainment. For some reason, nothing appealed. I love all of the projects in my queue but that evening I didn't have the yarn for any of the things I felt like starting. After combing through my list about 5 times, I decided to let it go and get new inspiration. Staring into my yarn storage, I spied an unlikely candidate.

A while back at Fiber Fusion Northwest I had purchased some roving. Roving is fiber that has been processed and likely dyed but not spun into proper yarn yet. It is thick and soft. I had never crocheted with roving before and thought it might be a fun experiment. And so, with the pangs of unfulfilled creativity sharp in my hands, I plucked the roving out of the drawer, grabbed my special wooden crochet hook (of unknown size), and finally got to work.

Spoiler Alert: I had no idea what I was doing.

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to crochet with roving you are in the wrong place. If you are looking to be entertained by my attempt to crochet with roving for the first time, hello. Let me spin you a yarn. Er, I mean, not spin it.

I began with the notion that I would make a pretty headband. A few minutes of messing around with the roving told me that this was much too high an expectation and that I should be satisfied with a single crochet swatch. The lovely woman who sold me the roving said all I had to do was pull it apart and hook it. Easy peasy. Apparently I am horrible at pulling it apart. Here's a casualty of my fumble fingers.

A moment of silence for the wasted roving. So soft, so pretty. Okay, it was time to pull off big chunks, kindergarten style. That worked a bit better. Once I got used to it I noticed that the roving would come off evenly if I was gentle and pulled in one smooth motion. Crocheting with the roving was actually pretty easy. It slid nicely on my hook and was very forgiving given my inexperience. Before long I had a little chain going.

I probably should have looked up a tutorial on crocheting with roving before I set off on my adventure but hey, what can I say? I let my free spirit get the best of me. It went okay. My tension was all over the place. However, I am happy to say that adding more roving onto the end of a strand was a piece of cake. I simply overlapped the end of the old strand with the beginning of the new one and rolled them together between my fingers.

All in all I had fun. I think roving would make a great chunky hat or cowl. This roving swatch is destined to become a luxury cat toy for little Ranna :p Have you ever crocheted with roving? Tell us about it!