I adapted the stair-step shell motif of the Fächer series of lace into a blanket by creating a 8 pointed variant and filling in between with single crochet.

The pattern is based on having 36 sections of what I think as the Fächer “spines”. To keep the spines even, I would increase all of them in the same round (36 increase) and then work two more rounds even to average out to 12 increases per round. Spines are composed of double crochet and joined by single crochet rather than the lacier version in the actual Fächer patterns.

To avoid having to stitch all the sections together at the end, I worked them one at a time and joined as I went, so I would do one spine section and fill it in with navy up to the height of the tallest spine. This created a wedge. Then I’d do the next color section joining it to the previous wedge.

After finishing the full round of spines and fill, I continued the rounds in navy single crochet until it reached the desired size. The border is 6 rounds of back loop single crochet.

Initially I used a size I hook for everything, but the single crochet was too stiff, so for the outer rounds I switched to a J hook (blocking does wonders to hide that…). In retrospect, I should have used the I hook for the double crochet and the J for the single crochet. (Maybe going back to I for the edging?)

I’m rounding up on the skeins used since I didn’t weigh the remainder.