Welcome to week 4 of the Lotus Moon Tiles CAL. We are moving right along with out octagon motifs which make up the greatest part of our afghan, but this is the last week we’ll be working on their rounds because next week we join them!
So, your assignment for this week is:
Rounds 11 through 13 of the octagon motifs
There are no new tutorials for this week. We’ve covered the basics needed for these rounds already. But, there are a few potentially confusing or tricky things that I wanted to discuss. Check out the video I post in the Facebook CAL group for more details on some of these, particularly the ones involving stitch placement.
- In round 9 you left a ch2 space unworked. It’s the one that is behind the picot of the petals of your flower. That is the one you work into, and where your round 11 begins.
- Back post stitching around a single crochet is a little weird. It’s hard to tell what the post really is. I don’t want you to get hung up on it, but I wanted touch on it so you could be sure you were making them correctly. Don’t worry too much about getting the right loops under/over your hook. Just slip your hook from back to front under the top two loops of the stitch you want to bp-stitch around. Next slip your hook from front to back under the top two loops of the next stitch. Yarn over and pull up a loop. There you go, you got the yarn around the post of the sc. (If you want to get technical this is a shallow post stitch which we’ll learn more about when we do the squares. But the way single crochets are constructed makes it inconvenient to do any other kind of post stitch. This is why I’m not fond of post stitching around single crochets. But now I’m just babbling and probably confusing you. Just forget I said all of this and make the post stitches like I explained.)
- In round 12 it’s very important to remember that puff stitches are closed with a chain 1. Any chain 1 that comes after a puff stitch is in addition to the chain 1 that closed it.
- Check out the video if you find skipping the hidden first hdc in rounds 12 and 13 confusing.
- Pay careful attention to the starting position of rounds 12 and 13. It is written to make the option of using all one color for these rounds possible, but, unfortunately, that makes it a little confusing if you’re starting with a new color. I’ve had quite a few people ask if round 12 is correct. I assure you there is no error; I’ve been over it a dozen times just to be sure.
- In round 13 we finally see our first real corner. There is a chain 1 space marked in the pattern as a corner. If you want to make things easy on yourself for joining, put stitch markers in those corner ch1 spaces.
- Finally, the octagons are going to get wavy this week. Really wavy. They will flatten out next week when we join them. I promise! Don’t worry!!! And the week after that when we put the squares in – they be even better. If there’s still a little bit of bubbling after that don’t worry. I’ll have some tricks to share with you at the end of the CAL to help you easily block your afghan. It won’t need much, but I can help you even out any wobbliness you might have.
I believe that is all for this week. If you’re still not sure what I’m talking about, it’s a crochet along! You can join in on the fun in the Lotus Moon CAL group on Facebook and you can get your own copy of the Lotus Moon Tiles afghan pattern on Ravelry.
Until next week,
