The most interesting/important pattern notes are summarised at the end, feel free to skip to them. I got a bit carried away with this project and most of my ‘notes’ turned into a blog! :o)

5/4/12
Starting this project today, wish me luck!

Ok, I’ve been working on section 1 nearly all day, but its only now that I’ve sewn all the pentagons in that I’ve noticed a problem. I know this centre section is meant to ‘puff’ but this is overly puffy, especially as I made the pentagons in single yarn not doubled like the pattern said in an attempt to make them flatter. Also the points curl over. I suspect that the black round on each should be made with the larger sized needle. Back to the drawing board……

ETA I made up a quick pentagon and made the black round with the 4mm hook and this time I get an almost completely flat pentagon. I guess I’m going to have to start from scratch as my daughter has decided that the first version makes a perfect summer hat for her doll! I have to say it looks better on her than it did as the begining of my afghan!

6/4/12
I remade the pentagons and hexagon and croched the triangles directly onto the sewn together sections, because I was struggling to sc into the chains because of the dark colour and the finer yarn. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if the overall stitch count is correct, I picked it up and put it down so many times because my little girl is ill. I hope I can work around any errors but time will tell. This is how I did the triangles: Starting at the tip of one of the pentagons, sl st in first three stitches of edging; sc in next 2 stitches; hdc in next 2 stitches; dc in next 4 stitches; hdc in next 2 stitches; sc in next 2 stitches; 3 sl st to get to next pentagon tip. Repeat 7 times, join back with sl st in original tip of pentagon. I stole it from here:http://www.precision-guesswork.com/cathedral-cal.html

7/4/12 I spent hours online trying to find out how to proceed with round 1 of section 2. Obviously the pattern was written to allow for the gaps between the triangles, which of course I don’t have because I followed the variation that called for crocheting right around. I couldn’t find a reference anywhere to how others did this so I came up with my own. Starting at the top of any pentagon sc in the next 3 stitches. hdc in next 2 st, 2 hdc in next st, dc in next 2 sts, 2dc in next st, dc in next 3 sts. hdc in next 2 sts, 2hdc in next st, sc in next 3 sts. repeat fot next 7 sections. This increases the stitch count from 18 to 21 between each pentagon, giving the correct count of 168 for the round. Yes, it makes the circle somewhat frilly, but increasing any circle by 24 stitches is going to do that. I hope the next few rounds will even this out.

9/4/12 The next 2 rounds did even the circle out. I’m carrying the threads rather than cutting at every colour change, meaning very few ends to sew in. I got the first popcorn round done today, it took ages! I’m not sure I like the way it looks, nor how it makes the round before and after it look uneven.

15/4/12 The pyramids are now complete, but all the ends have yet to be sewn in. There are hundreds of them! Makes me appreciate just how much work carrying the thread in the earlier rounds actually saved. Just those ends and the heptagons to go before section three.

19/4/12 Section 2 complete (well all bar a few ends to sew in) As others have said, the heptagons wern’t a great fit, but were eased into the pryamids. I hope that they will lie flat when the next few rounds are in. N.B They do lie flat with the next few rounds in place

26/4/12 Got as far as sec3 rd 12. Filling the valleys around the heptagons not only took a long time, but despite by best efforts don’t lie flat. They are really puffy. I’m a little disappointed as the fiddly nature of all the turning and carrying (along with my being a new crocheter) etc means that the back of the afghan looks a little untidy, and there are a few places where the black shows through the front too. Hopefully continuing will make it less noticable in the grand scheme of things.

ETA in natural day light the black is far less noticable than it is with the lights on in the evening. My camera isn’t picking up the difference in the lemon/gold colours, its much more distinct in the hand. I’m excited to start my burnt orange band this weekend.

30/4/12 I finished the second dreaded pop corn round today! It didn’t take have as long as expected. Now I can’t wait to get it finished.

6/5/12 The valleys and coloums for the final heptagoins are now complete. The amount of ends that needed sewing in was incredible. It felt like a mamouth task. On to the heptagons.

I know I’ve worried about this project curling up or looking frilly in the past, but I just laid it out to see how my heptagons will look when I’ve made enough, and without some agressive pinning out, I couldn’t get it close to flat. I suspected that 4 rounds without increases might have this effect, what I didn’t realise was how bad it would be. So far this pattern has always worked itself out. I hope to goodness that this is the case again, because I’m so close to finishing now that I think I’ll cry if I get to the end and it just doesn’t sit. I was planning on blocking it anyway, but I didn’t think it would need it this much.

14/5/12 Heptagons are in and semi circles crocheted on top. Just 4 more rounds to go!

7/5/12. I’ve just sewn the last end in. ITS FINISHED! It still doesn’t lie flat so I’ll block it tonight when my daughter is safely out of the way in bed.
Can’t wait to have the finished photos to post and to sign it off :o)

NOTES

A couple of notes for myself incase I ever decide to make this again (yes, I might be mad, but my LYS has a really nice blue/red/white DK verigated that would look great as a stained glass window….)

Use only one size hook and do not double the thread. I didn’t double this time, but I did start with the smaller hook for the pentagons in section 1. There wasn’t a need for it.
Section 1 crochet the triangles around as I did this time - so much easier.
Section 2 round 7 - filling in the valleys. I’d like to tinker with this part, either make the shapes seperately and sew them in, or maybe reduce the stich count by 1 per row per valley. Hopefully this would reduce the puffiness. Section 3 rounds 18-20. These rows NEED some increases. The lack of extra stitches/row here is the primary reason that the blanket puckers. I would add an increase every other section for 2 of these rows to solve the problem, but of course the following rounds would take some working out to take into account the extra stitches. I would add an extra DC in the last round in the 3 shells that form the valley to make them look a bit more even with the others. ETA blocking DID fix this

And above all, I was sooooo glad that I sewed the ends in more or less as I went. Whe I read other projects that said that there were over 940 ends I assumed that they hadn’t carried the thread. I was wrong. That was WITH carring where possible.