I was a little intimidated by this pattern - it looks so different to anything I’ve tried before. However, the pattern is easy to follow and I’m so thrilled with my progress so far.

21 October: Have completed 17 of the 35 large motifs and it’s coming along a lot more quickly than I thought it might. Really enjoying it and the detail of the pattern means I’m not getting bored, despite only having one colour to work with.

27 Feb: this hibernated while I was finishing a few other things but is now back on the hook. I’ve done 32 of the large motifs but have decided to do a seven by seven size as I think it will be more practical. Have also done one of the fill in squares to see how that went and found that - probably because I’m using a smaller hook and lighter yarn - it was too small to neatly fill the space. Have therefore added a round of dc (three dc in corner) and then done the join. I think it works, may refine it with the next one and go back and adjust.

Deadline to finish this is 27 March. Will I make it?!

19 March: Have finished all the infill squares and also about 70 percent of the weaving in of ends - just the border and rest of the loose weaving to do.

19 March, 9pm. Finally complete. Yay!

NOTES ON PATTERN:

In round 2 of the filler square there needs to be a 1ch between each PC. The pattern I have does not include that and it should be there in order to complete the sc in ch1 space in round 3.

Also, I’m not sure how others managed, but as I’ve already mentioned I found the squares didn’t fill the space very well if I followed the pattern. Instead, I made round 5 as follows:

Ch 3 (counts as dc) dc in same place, dc in next 11 sts (which are hdc, 9sc, hdc), 3 dc in next dc, repeat from, finishing with dc in same place as first 3ch. Join with slip stith.

Not only did this fill the space better, but I found it left me with 12 stitches on each side, which let me fit the square better into the space left by the joined octagons, which each present a side with 6 ch3 spaces.