How'd you do that?

So, last night I crocheted this little bath cloth:

I think it's really cute and David likes that it puckers up a little and provides a good grip for a bath cloth.  We'll see if it is big enough when it's washed and dried...it looks a tad small to me, but these things do grow.

Anyway, I sent the pic to mom and she said, "how'd you do that?"  I told her I read the pattern and then made it up (what I got out of the pattern is that I was supposed to chain 5, create a ring, single crochet in the ring and then chain 7 off of the ring).  From there it was crocheting in the pink to create the body of the cloth...decreasing at the base and increasing at the tips of the flowers.  It really wasn't hard and I totally made it up once I did the first round.

And if I can figure out how to make it lay flatter then I'll definitely be blowing up this idea into a bath rug because that would be the cutest cutest thing in the world. (or placemats...)

Anyway, all of this is to say that crochet somehow makes intuitive sense to me.  I "learned" by watching Knit and Crochet Now! and Knitting Daily TV...so the process of the steps had been shown to me over and over (and yes, I watch them over and over and over)...but the act of creating items from crochet...it makes perfect sense.  Once I figured out where to start my first stitch on a row, I was cruising!

I'm testing different stitch patterns out on bath cloths...I'll have a bunch by the time this is over...and what I like I'm making into stripes for the girls' bath mats...Liz's now has two, and I think I'm going to alternate these two patterns with the different colors to create a really run and very textured bath mat.  What I love about doing these mats in the single strand of cotton is that they can be thrown directly into the washing machine easily...we will see how they hold up, but I think they'll be good.

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Daddy's story:  When I was younger my daddy had a "big old belly" and I used to tease him that he had a baby in that belly.  I would watch tv with him and prop my head on his belly while we watched.  That baby would "kick" and knock my head around and I would laugh and laugh.