Crochet between worlds: Frida's Flowers CAL - Block 4

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

Frida's Flowers CAL - Block 4 - Rosa

Hi!

Can you believe we are already in week four of the CAL? Time is certainly flying by! :)

The Fourth Instalment of the Frida's Flowers Blanket Crochet-Along, designed by Jane Crowfoot and hosted by Stylecraft Yarns has just been posted, and is available to download NOW from the Stylecraft website, in English (US and UK), German and Dutch.

If you haven't set up a Ravelry project yet, the pattern page can be found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fridas-flowers-blanket
We are working the CAL along with you all (in the Classique Cotton, provided by the wonderful Stylecraft team), and will post our tips and tricks for each part at the same time as the pattern is published over at the Stylecraft website. If you have any questions or need help, there are Facebook groups (English: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1555519964767343/ , German: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1039765272753087/ and Dutch:https://www.facebook.com/groups/145851979128898/ ),

and you are always welcome to leave a comment here or ask us on Facebook. As you know, Anne is doing the German translations for the CAL, so ask away in German too!

So, Block 4 - Rosa:

Front

Back

You'll need to make 4 hexagons.

Yarn usage:
11g Sunflower (21m)
7g Plum (13m)
12g Poppy (22m)
5g Shrimp (10m)
13g Greek Blue (24m)
7g Nocturne (13m)
6g Toffee (11m)
47g Black (87m)
19g Ivory (35m)

Remember: We are using the Classique Cotton, so use the meterage above if you are making Frida in another DK yarn.

Here's a little spreadsheet tool that Michelle is using to track yarn usage - just enter your start and finish weights for your yarns, and then the weight and meterage used will be automatically calculated!

Our Top Tips for the Rosa Block:

1) Jane suggests in the Get Ready Document that is clever to work on all four parts at once, that is you do each row/round on each of the four flowers before moving onto the next row. We highly recommend this way of crocheting the squares as well. They work up far more even this way, as it is highly likely you will crochet the rows with the same tension.

2) Sew in the ends after finishing off a colour. Block 4 has - just like block 3 - a whole lots of colour changes and thus many, many ends to sew in.

Just about everyone hates sewing in ends but doing it straight away has two advantages:

a. you won't have lots and lots of ends to sew in after finishing the block. If you are like me, you might be put off by all the ends and won't finish the block or lose the joy in making the square. By doing the sewing in bit by bit, you don't have a massive pile up.

b. You will crochet over your sewn in ends and thus they will be stitched in even safer.

3) Round 3 can be a bit tricky!

Into each group of 5sc in Round 2, you do:

1st sc - sc
2nd sc - hdc
3rd sc - 2dc
4th sc - 2dc
5th sc - hdc

I think the pattern wants us to sc into the stitch you skipped at the beginning when you get back around to the start :) If you're lazy like me, just do the first sc into the same stitch as the ch1, and follow the pattern from there!

4) Start Round 4 with a standing sc instead of a ch1 pretending to be a spike stitch! Your work will be neater and easier to join into when you get back to the beginning of the round. You can find a tutorial for the knotless standing sc here: http://mrsmicawber.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/crochet-turning-chain-alternatives.html