Zen & the Art of Mat-Carrying

Do you yoga? It's one of my favourite activities, and I'll sneak in a little flow whenever I get the chance.

Having said that, I've only ever been to a handful of actual classes as I tend to follow YouTube videos - it fits round my hectic life better, and I'm obsessed with the Yoga With Adriene channel (even if you've never done yoga before I highly recommend you try out one of her videos - it's what got me hooked on yoga

years ago).

Anyhoo - speaking of 'hooked' - back on topic...

One of my best friends invited me to a yoga session - it's a pretty unique one, inside the Beyond Van Gogh exhibition in Liverpool, so I definitely couldn't say no to that. But it begged the question, how do I carry my yoga mat? If I've ever needed to schlep it anywhere before I've just stuck it in a bag-for-life and called it done - but, going alongside a bona-fide gym bunny, I wanted to up my game a little...

Enter the crochet hooks. I had a few requirements for a pattern - it needed to look cute, and have a soft shoulder section. This one from Carlie Flo fit the bill perfectly, and I happened to have a few wooden rings left over from a previous project, so I set about stitching.

It took me a few hours in total - I'm sure others could do it much quicker though - and I extended the length slightly (I went with 100 rows instead of the suggested 74) as I like a long strap.

I found the instructions really easy to follow, and I love the pattern that the suzette stitch on the shoulder section makes. It only used about a third of a ball of yarn so would be a really great stash buster. It'd be super easily be adapted, and I'm tempted to try it out making a camera strap with carabiner clips instead of rings, as it would be super soft around my neck.

What do you think? Would you make this pattern?