Sept. 1st--
I’m making this afghan in Caron Simply Soft in the following colors:

MC = Autumn Red
A = Ocean (“peacock” blue)
B = Sunshine
C = Persimmon (salmon)
D = Dark Country Blue
E = Light Country Blue

Sept. 9th--
Well, I messed up on my first octagon. Despite having previously read someone’s blog entry about making the exact same mistake, I somehow managed to make the “flower” in the middle with only five petals. Oops! I didn’t spot my error until several rows later. After that rocky start, though, things have been going more smoothly.

I find the diagram easier to follow than the written instructions, though I do just glance at the directions every now and then (mainly to remind myself of the numbers involved in certain rows, which I haven’t quite memorized yet).

There are a lot of single crochets in this pattern-- a bit more than I’m used to, really, and in my first (five-petaled) attempt my stitches were a little too tight for pleasant crocheting. Fortunately, my tension has loosened up a bit as I’ve gotten used to the motif. It’s going much more smoothly now.

March 16th--
As of a couple of days ago, the motifs are stitched together (something of a job!), and the border’s done, but I still have some tails to weave in. (There are only those left from slip stitching it together, though, thank goodness. I wove in the bulk of the ends as I went.)

When I got to the border, a single round of single crochet felt like too little to me (especially since I wanted to smooth out/hide some slight unevenness between the octagons and the triangles), so I used border #50 from Edie Eckman’s Around the Corner Crochet Borders. (I worked the first round in MC, the second in C, and the third in D.) I like how that border worked out for this afghan. It adds a little extra interest without overwhelming the design of the whole.