Circles of the Sun Mystery CAL - General Information

Only five days are left till the official beginning of my summer Mystery CAL 2015 (as the first pattern will be published next Friday, on 26th of June) and it’s the right time to give you more details about this project. Oh! I’ve actually come up with the name. My CAL will be named "Circles of the Sun". All 9 granny squares are different but still made in the same style, and they remind me of small suns. There are both floral and geometrical elements, so I really hope you will like them. After I posted brief information about this upcoming CAL I got many questions from you. So I will try to answer them in this post.

What is this Mystery CAL about?

As I’ve announced earlier, this Mystery CAL will be about Overlay crochet and granny squares. The main aim of this project is to introduce Overlay Crochet technique to you. If you have never heard about it before it will be a nice opportunity to start mastering it. And if you've tried my patterns already – then you will get a chance to make one more project in this amazing technique.

During this CAL you will create a front decoration for a pillow cover consisting of 9 squares made in overlay crochet. There will be no pattern for the back side of the pillow, so you will need a fabric pillow cover onto which you will sew your crocheted decoration.

IMPORTANT: Please, be aware that all my patterns (free or paid) are protected by copyright. All patterns are for personal use only. You are not allowed to copy, reproduce, redistribute, sell and edit them in part or as a whole. Translations and video tutorials are NOT allowed without permission. You are welcome to sell your finished items made by my patterns, but you cannot use my pictures to promote them. Please, always credit me as the designer of these patterns. You are not allowed to share pdf-files created from my posts with anyone. If you would like more people to join my CAL – please, share a link to my blog with them. You can check Copyright page for more details.


Resources

• Tutorials. The patterns of each block will be published here, on my blog, every Friday.
  
  
• Newsletter. If you haven’t done this yet, be sure to subscribe to my Weekly Newsletter not to miss a single beat of this CAL. I also offer a free pattern of Macaron Pin Cushion exclusively to my subscribers. If you have some problems with subscribing, please feel free to do it on any page of my blog.
  
  
• Ravelry. Please, add this CAL to your Ravelry queue. You can also join my official group on Ravelry where the information about each tutorial will be published and where you can also share your finished blocks.
  
  
• Facebook. Don’t forget to join my Facebook club. And be sure to check Official CCC Social Group which will host Circles of the Sun CAL 2015.
  
  
• Pinterest. I’ve created a new board on Pinterest where all the tutorials of this CAL will be added after being published on my blog.
  
  
• Video. All videos for this CAL will be kindly recordered by Esther Dijkstra from It’s all in a Nutshell. You can view the video in the end of each post!
  
  
• CAL version in Dutch and German. I am happy to announce that my CAL will be kindly translated to Dutch by Dianne Baan from Haakdingen.nl. You can read general information about this CAL and ready tutorials in Dutch HERE. And translation of this CAL to German is made by Libminna. Please, read general information in German HERE. The links to translation of each tutorial will also be added to separate posts.

Stitch Abbreviations

US standard abbreviations are used in this pattern. But if you are used to other terms, please check this Crochet Translation Project which might be helpful in translation to your language. There will be detailed instructions about how to make every stitch given in the pattern for each block.

Skill level: Beginner or Intermediate?

I am very often asked if this CAL is also suitable for beginners… In general overlay crochet is considered to be intermediate to advance technique. But I have my own opinion on this and I expressed it in this post. In fact overlay crochet uses the same stitches as "classical" one and the only difference is in a way you attach overlaid stitches.

I tried to design not tricky patterns with advanced beginners in mind. I think that due to a huge amount of pictures this CAL should be not a problem. But everything of course depends on your personal level.

You should already know how to crochet in rounds, in front or back loops, how to join rounds, how to make magic ring, (US terms here) chain, slip stitch, single crochet, double crochet, treble crochet and their variations like dc3tog, dc4tog, tr2tog and so on.

If you haven’t done this yet – please, check Overlay Crochet section on my blog. I published all the important information about this technique. I would recommend to you to have a look at it before you start the CAL. Especially it is important to know how to attach the yarn and how to join the rounds. I will of course link up to certain articles from every tutorial.

Yarn and colors

I used Cotton Light yarn (DK) by DROPS for this CAL in 6 colors: beige, gray, ruby, yellow, green and orange… Well, I should be honest with you now as I actually used one skein of Safran yarn (Sport weight) by DROPS (orange) which is a different weight.

It happened because I wanted to add orange but this shade was not available and I decided to take a risk by adding one skein in different weight. And… And it worked! :) There was lots of orange yarn left so I am safe to say: if you choose 6 skeins of Cotton Light – that should be enough.

BUT! Please, be aware that the amount of yarn YOU will use for your CAL depends on many factors: on the yarn you use, on the size of the hook and on your personal crochet style. I used a 3.25 mm (D) hook and I would say I am a tight crocheter.

While designing this decoration for a pillow I really wanted to keep you away from purchasing new yarn as I wanted it to be a stush buster project.

So before actually buying new yarn, please, dig deeper into your stash and may be you will find some yarn there. If you have a small amount of each color – you can use more colors for this CAL (not just 6).

Overlay crochet is about drawing with yarn. Making each square you will change the colors on ever round and it’s not really necessary to exactly follow the color key given in each pattern. You can change the colors according to your taste, and your pillow will be unique!

I am often asked which colors would work best for this CAL. Well, I would recommend solid and contrasting colors. But if you rather want to take several shades of two or three colors, please, be sure to use light and dark shades.

If you take similar colors the whole image of each square will not be so vivid. And I would also recommend to use stiffer yarns rather that soft. And with no “arty” effects. Please, feel free to check this post where I show in examples how different yarns can influense the look of the project in overlay crochet.


Size

The size of each block and a pillow as a result will naturally depend on yarn and hook chosen. My squares are 12.5 cm x 12.5 cm (5” x 5”) large. And my front decoration with the border is 40 cm x 40 cm (16” x 16”).

Gauge

There is no gauge listed here as it will also depend on your yarn and hook. And also on your crochet style. The only important guideline here is that every your block should be flat and of the same size.

Circles of the Sun Timeline (Links to all the tutorials as they become available)

Block 1                                    26 June 2015
Block 2                                    3 July 2015
Block 3                                    10 July 2015
Block 4                                    17 July 2015
Block 5                                    24 July 2015
Block 6                                    31 July 2015
Block 7                                    7 August 2015
Block 8                                   14 August 2015
Block 9                                   21 August 2015
Joining and the Border             28 August 2015

Seems like this is all for now… Please, leave a comment to this post if I missed something important.

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