For week one, we are doing rounds 1 thru 20.
I suggest placing a marker on the right side; rounds 17 to 19 are worked on the wrong side so they lay right for the overall design.
Unless it specifically says to skip a stitch, assume you are not skipping any; there are times when stitches will go into a chain space and into the stitch following it, watch out for those.
There will be times when your piece ripples or cups for a few rounds. Unless this becomes severe, it’s just the way the pattern goes. This will usually fix itself within a few rounds.
Round 1: When starting this project, keep in mind the pattern is designed to start with a chain 6 ring, leaving a small space in the center. If the center is too tight, your blanket will ripple badly; if you prefer to start with a magic ring, remember to keep it loose enough to accommodate all those treble stitches.
Round 2: yes, it cups on this round. Trust the pattern, it will fix itself as we go.
Round 3: This is the first color change if you are using 6 colors; pick a stitch, any stitch. If you are using fewer colors or doing it all in one color; you can just start in the same stitch you joined in.
If you are changing colors, you can use a standing dc stitch instead of the ch 3 if you prefer. This is a good round to double check your stitch count; you should have 12 pairs of dc with a 2 chain space between each one.
Round 4: This one is just single crochets, pretty simple!
Round 5: Again, feel free to start with a standing stitch instead of the chains if that’s your preference; that’s what I did. This round is easy to add an extra repeat, make sure you are keeping count. Depending on where you started this round, your sc may line up a little different than mine, as long as the stitch count is correct, it’s fine.
Round 6: Things start getting more complicated here. Keep in mind (stuff in here) means a repeat in a single stitch or space, and a + means the final repeat will stop at that point; the starting stitch(es) complete the design. Total, you should have 8 points.
Round 7: For this round, we just need to start in any of the ch 2 spaces; I used a standing tr instead of the chain 4 for mine. If you aren’t changing colors, you can slip stitch over to the chain space, or tie off and start in the ch 2. For this round, every stitch and chain space gets used. The sc3tog should be centered over the last round sc.
Round 8: For this round, it says to slip stitch to the chain 2, and if you aren’t changing colors after this round, I recommend following that. If you are changing colors, the ending point of this round won’t matter, so if you prefer to eliminate the slip stitches, this is how:
ch 1, sc in same st, sc in next stitch, (2 sc, ch 2, 2 sc) in the ch 2, then start at the . The final repeat will now end with 3 sc instead of 5, but nothing else changes.
The skipped stitch should fall over the sc3tog from last round.
Round 9: If you aren’t changing colors, you can slip stitch into the ch 2 to start in the right spot. We are filling in the valleys between the points here; it won’t be completely even between the points, but they will be very close. The 4 tr should be 2 on each side of the skipped stitch; if you are having trouble lining up, make sure you put your sc in the first stitch after the ch 2.
Round 10: Again, you can slip stitch over if you aren’t changing colors. Continuing to level out those valleys; you should be increasing in the outer 2 trs and dc2tog with the 2 center ones.
If you prefer to start this round with a standing st, you need to use a dc and then ch2.
Round 11: You are joining to the right (before) of the ch 2 in rnd 10 for this round; if you aren’t changing colors, you can slip stitch back until you are in the right spot.
To help you check if things are lining up, you will have the dc group in the ch space points, and the tr bunch should be in the dc2tog. If that isn’t where they are landing, double check if you started in the right spot. Mine is rippling, but I expect it to flatten out in the next few rounds.
Round 12: Here we have a stitch specific to the pattern: w-st. It is not as complicated as it sounds, (dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc) all in the same space. We also will have clusters, cl (dc2tog in 1 space) this round.
You need to join in the second dc, skip the first dc(slip stitch over if you aren’t changing colors)
To help line up, the w-st will go in the ch 1 points between last rounds dc groups, and the cl stitches go in the chains between tr stitches.; this round seems more tricky than it really is.
Round 13: I hope you like hdc, you are doing 152 of them for this round! The sections with the clusters, you will be stitching into the ch spaces between the clusters, and skipping the cluster stitches. Each repeat is a total of 19 hdc.
Place a stitch marker in a hdc you put in the middle dc of one of the w-st; it will make it much easier to find a start point for the next round.
Round 14: The pattern says to Start in the 4th stitch. In this round that means you should start in the hdc that went into the center dc of the w st from round 12. We are going from a petal type shape back into an octagon design.
Round 15: Time for more hdc. This round has simple increases every 7 sts(a total of 18 increases) We don’t have to worry about lining these increases up with anything in particular this time.
Round 16: Yet more hdc; increasing 15 times around; this does not fit into the previous round evenly. The first section will have less stitches in it to compensate, so it may look a little off. It will be fixed later.
Now you need to TURN your work. Rounds 17 through 19 will be done on the wrong side! The pictures are still of the front of the work, so the stitches look backwards.
Round 17: pretty simple, we are just doing sc all the way around. Double check your count is correct on this one; with turning our work around, it’s easy to get an extra stitch at the join.
Round 18: We are adding some texture now; your trs should push to the front(which is the back right now) like mini popcorn stitches, you may have to help them.
Round 19: Last round from the back! Just another round of sc to balance things out. This one hides right now, curling under when viewed from the right side.
Round 20: TURN back around so we are working on the right side again, then it’s just a round of hdc. It may be cupping again some; we just did 5 rounds with no increases.
Make sure you count your stitches again; it’s the end of what we are doing for the week and a good time to weave in your ends, once you are sure it is all correct.
Week 2 will start with a different color. If you are doing it all in one color/not following the color changes, there is no need to tie off; the next round can be started in any stitch.
That’s it for week one; feel free to message me if you get stuck!