Welcome to week 3 of the Lotus Moon Tiles CAL!
But, before we get started with week 3, I wanted to address some concerns from week 2. It was brought to my attention that several people were having issues with curling around rounds 4 and 5. I just wanted to reassure you that this is normal. You petals should curl. That being said, your round 4 and/or 5 should not ruffle/buckle a lot, but your petals should curl. If you’re not sure that it’s working properly I recommend working one motif through round 6 and then compare to my photos below.
Here’s a motif through round 6. This one hasn’t been touched since round 6 was finished. See how the petals curl a lot and it buckles just a bit?
Here it is again after I gently smoothed it out by hand. The petals still curl in a lotus-like manner (hence the name, if they didn’t curl like this we’d probably be talking about a different flower right now).
If you’re still not sure, try working that one motif through round 10. Make sure and check out this weeks videos for tips (round 10 will also curl). But at round 10 you’ll be able to see the finished flower and how it will lay. Please remember the curling is on purpose and the flower is supposed to be just slightly 3 dimensional.
Anyway, I hope this helps and makes you feel better as we move along.
This Week’s Assignment:
Rounds 7 – 10 of the octagon motifs
Pointers:
- Standing trebles are not at all necessary for round 7. You’re hardly going to see them so don’t bother yourself if you don’t want to; just do a ch4 in place of the standing tr.
- Stitch placement for round 7 can be tricky. Here’s a little graphic to help you:
- Everything is worked behind previous rounds and will remain loose until round 10 where we finally pin down the tips of the petals.
- Working into the bottom of the round 6 picot is a little bit different. Definitely make your picots as I instructed in the video tutorial (by slip stitching into the back bump) to make working into them easier. Then check out the video about working into picots.
- CAL member suggestion: I haven’t tried this myself. (Yet. I fully intend to try it because I think it’s a great idea.) So you’ll have to use your best judgement to decide if you want to try this yourself. Kelly Cielanga went up a hook size for round 10. It won’t affect your work this week, but next week it could help a lot. Next week we’re going to make back post stitches around the single crochets from round 10. This can be a pain. But Kelly found it much easier to do when her stitches were a tad bit looser in round 10. She also found that the waviness you’ll see next week was much less significant. I promise I’ll update you on how my trial of this goes, but my hopes are high; it’s very logical.
Resources:
Working into picots video tutorial:
That’s it for this week! Remember to share your pictures in the Facebook CAL Group, or in the Ravelry group, or on Instagram with the hastag #lotusmooncal. The pattern is available on Ravelry.
Happy hooking!
