On February 18, 2021, NASA landed their Perseverance Rover on Mars. As the parachute slowing the rover’s descent opened, it revealed an asymmetric, almost random looking pattern, definitely not the regular checkerboard watchers were expecting. Rumors about a secret code in the parachute’s pattern had barely begun to spread before the message was decoded:
DARE MIGHTY THINGS
38°11’58” N 118°10’31” W
This is the motto and GPS coordinates of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California – effectively Perseverance’s birthplace.

This doily celebrates both landing a rover to search for extinct life on Mars, and the entertainment engineers find in adding hidden messages to even the most serious of endeavors.

I kept the stitch pattern fairly simple, but the colorwork requires using bobbins. I would not recommend this project if you have not worked multiple colors in a single row before.

Uses 1.5 mm hook, 400 yards white and 275 yards red size 10 crochet thread.