Carousel CAL - Part 4

I hope you all enjoyed the Pentagons a fortnight ago! This week we go one side better and make Hexagons :P 

Part Four of the Carousel Crochet-Along, designed by Sue Pinner 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/carousel-cal  

We are working the CAL along with you all, and will post our tips and tricks for each part at the same time as the pattern is published over at the Stylecraft website. 

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments or on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/crochetbetweenworlds/) - we are here to help you. Anne is doing the German translations for the CAL again, so ask away in German too!

Part Four, the Shaped Hexagons:

Our top tips for the Shaped Hexagons are:

1. The Hexagons provide more practice for everything we've learned so far: padded centres, standing stitches, numbered pieces, join-as-you-go... I've linked our previous Tips posts below, and recommend having a flick through before you start your Hexagons. 

Part 1 - The Centre Motif

Part 2 - Red and Cream Banding

Part 3 - Pentagons

2. Colour charts! I've created them again for the Hexagons to make the colour lists easier to read and follow. Download your required colour chart from these links:

Part 4 - Shaped Hexagons - Special DK 

Part 4 - Shaped Hexagons - Batik DK

Part 4 - Shaped Hexagons - Word doc 

(to use find/replace if you are using different colours) 

3. After Row 4 your hexagons will curl up. That's ok - it will flatten out again as you get further out. 

4. If you're using the little paper numbers to keep track of which piece is which, you can save on stitch markers (and moving them every row) and pin them on the hexagon towards the outside point once you've done Row 5. 

5. I got to rewrite the joining instructions for this part, so hopefully they are easy to follow! 

You'll be joining to other shapes on all sides (so no awkward band joining), and if you get lost just remember - slip stitch into the adjoining stitch on the sides of each hexagon, and in the corners, replace chains with slipstitches into adjacent corners.  

For a little extra help, I made this short video showing how I joined the Hexagons in. Totally unofficial and not approved by Sue or Stylecraft, but hopefully it will help you visualise the instructions :)

We hope these tips help you! 

Check back here in two weeks on Tuesday 1 November for Part Five - the Ripple Border :)