Wink’s Summer Hearts Mandala

If you only follow one new blog this year, you must make sure it is A Creative Being.  Everything about Wink’s blog is beautiful.  The projects, the colours, the photography, everything.  It’s just one amazing package of crochet goodness. I have a few of her patterns, including the Design Wars shortlisted entry Dancing Hearts Wrap and most recently, the Summer Hearts Mandala which is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! I wanted to create the mandala in line with the Crochet Collective’s Mandala Crochet Along, but I’m just useless at sticking with timelines, my life is just too busy, plus I really wanted to make this mandala as my first, and it wasn’t on their schedule (but there are some extraordinary ones, so check it out). So, I decided to sit down one night and smash it out.  And smash it out I did.  It’s a seriously fast pattern to work up, and it looks amazing.  I had the yarn and colours that Wink used (or close enough to) on hand and I couldn’t imagine using anything else. But I had a problem.  It’s difficult to see above, but instead of lying flat, the mandala has curled edges.  See what I mean? So I decided to leave it for the night as it was late and I was tired, and I wanted to fix it in the morning when I was feeling fresh again. The problem I have is that although I was using the exact same yarn, and the exact same hook as the pattern, my tension is far tighter than Winks, so the edges curled up on me.  This is a result of all the amigurumi projects I’ve been focusing on – you have to crochet tight so as to keep the stitches close together (I usually use at least one hook size down than what the yarn calls for). Here’s how I hold my yarn, how do you hold yours?  See how tightly wrapped around my little finger it is? But instead of frogging the entire project, I decided to just rip out the last couple of rows, to where it started to curl. This is the row that was causing the problem, before that I was progressing beautifully. I decided that because it’s difficult for me to loosen my tension (old habits die hard, right?), I would go up half a hook size and try my best. I love my Clover hooks, they are the single best crochet related purchase I’ve made so far. And here we go!  The finished mandala! See how beautifully flat it lies now? It has a slight curve, a bit like a saucer, but I think that’s the intention, and I love it. The Summer Hearts Mandala was a beautiful project to make, I’m definitely going to be making more, and will experiment with different colours. Would you like me to make you one? By all means feel free to get in contact, I’d be honoured. Have you made any mandalas?  Which pattern is your favourite? There are so many to choose from and they’re all beautiful.