Lotus Mandala Prayer Flag joy

Helloooooo!

Thank you for popping in to visit us this morning!  I hope you’ve enjoyed your week and are having a relaxing Sunday!  Despite the rain and mist, it’s a lovely cozy day here, and not at all cold which is great.

 

I tried to photograph the misty hills for you, but the flash caught the rain drops!  Don’t they look magical?

I’ve been up since 6am as I had to drop KB off at work, then went to the vege market, as I do on a Sunday morning!  I’m completely knackered after a busy week and a terrible night’s sleep which involved getting woken up by some drunk boys having a massive screaming match over some girl- lots of the F word and another neighbour intervening- phew!  Then I had a totally crazy dream that I was trying to buy chocolate while walking on really tall stilts.  So I’m having one of “those” mornings today… I was driving through the city and turned a corner and *CLONK* something hit the side of my car really loudly…like I had run over a big rock and it had smacked up into the bottom of my car… *boom boom boom* goes my heart, as it’s darkish and raining, but I managed to get to the market and home in one piece… then walked through the front door and *woosh* did one of those slips that nearly results in the splits and just about dropped my bags of veges everywhere!  I decided I absoloutely needed to sit down in my rocker, stat, before I broke something, or myself, and have a rest and relax before I do anything like put the veges away!  Luckily I managed not to drop and destroy these beautiful pieces of happy!

 

Oh how I love pink, the whole spectrum of pinky goodness never fails to make me feel loving and happy. 

So yay, here I am, excited to be spending a little time in my happy place, sorting out the tutorial for my new favourite thing, the lotus mandala prayer flags!  I’ve had a few people comment here and on Ravelry that they’re watching for the tutorial, and wow, thank you! That makes me feel really good, it was awesome to get such a positive response!

I whipped up another set on Friday morning, they only took me a few hours, and I apologise for the terrible lighting in my photographs… my photos turn out best when the sun is shining, which it doesn’t always, so some of them get a bit dark.

Here’s the finished product….

Oh I love them!  I made them with 8ply wool and a 4mm hook.  They’re made mainly with dc2tog stitches, a quick reminder of how to do that is:

Yarn over hook, insert hook into stitch, pull through loop, yarn over, pull loop through 2 stitches on hook, yarn over, insert hook into same stitch, pull through loop, yarn over, pull loop through 2 stitches on hook (three left on hook) yarn over, pull loop through all three stitches on hook.

To begin, we are going to make a magic ring, ch2, 1dc (counts as 1dc2tog), ch1, dc2tog, repeat 4 more times until you have 6 dc2tog, each separated by 1ch.  Join with a slst to 2nd ch of original 2ch. Click here and a magical window will pop up with a photo tutorial for how to do this, it’s the same as the centre of the grandala square.  My advice?  Make all five at once and weave in the ends as you go!!!

Change your colour, and bringing new colour through from the back, join with a slst, ch2, 1dc (counts as 1dc2tog), ch1, into same space, dc2tog.  Ch1, into the next space, dc2tog, ch1, dc2tog… continue around the circle until each 1ch space from round 1 is filled with 2dc2tog each separated by 1ch.  Join with a slst to 2nd ch of original 2ch.

Weave in those ends now!  Go on!!!  Do it!  It will make the whole process more fun if you don’t have that big job to do at the end!!!!!

OK, so next round is pretty much the same as the last round, except in every second 1ch space, just do 1dc2tog.  See the pic?

And the next round is exactly the same as the last!

For the outside, join the last colour with a slst and ch1.  Now sc into each stitch around the edge until you get halfway around.  ch3, and sc into the next space.

Turn, and into the 3ch loop, sc, hdc, dc, ch1, dc, hdc, sc.  Slst into closest sc, and turn again.

Slst into the three stitches and slst into the 1ch space, then make a picot by chaining3, then slst into the first ch, slst into the smae space and slst into the three stitches back to the beginning.  Slst into the next stitch and continue with sc around the edge.

And viola!  There you have it!  I hope that made sense!  Let me know if I talked you into a tangle!

When you have made five, back them with felt by cutting circles to fit and loosely sewing onto the back.  I tried to be lazy and not do it with this set, but they flopped in a terribly unattractive way, so back them I did!

To join them, I ch10 then slst into a loop, ch15, join one mandala with 3sc along the top, ch20, join the next one…. until I had a nice even row of beautiful hanging mandalas!

Here’s where I hung them, here’s a picture of a spot in my house, which I’ll admit here, is comfortably, cozily cluttered with wonderful things!

You can see through there into my kitchen, the slow cooker is cooking some delicious soup!

So I was reminded that it’s international crochet day today by a few blogs and how exciting is that!!!  here’s what I’m going to get up to for the next little while!

Continuing work on my latest grandala square cushion!  I’m loving looking around blogs and seeing grandalas popping up!  I thought I’d try hooking one in a different colour scheme to my usual too-bright-to-look-at styles!  KB loves it and I think I do too….  Later I’m off for a visit to my parents to get some wool sorted for Tuesday where I’m going to learn injection dying.  I’ll be sure to take my camera and show you all the process too!

Lots of love to you wonderful and kind people, I’m so looking forward to having a nice catch up of all of your blogs which I’ve been having withdrawals from as I’ve been working, and have so missed soaking up all of your loveliness…

Have a lovely Sunday,

From Alice and Raymond XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX