Week 3 | Denna + Octagon

Week 3 |  Octagon and Denna

Stephanie | My pattern this week is called Octagon. I really liked this pattern and it was easy to put together as it consists of a few half square triangles (HST). The description of this pattern says to keep with the same color family, and the example used pink/red/purple hues. I liked that combination and keep with that same look. Making HST is simple, this pattern however said to make the original square an inch larger than the completed triangle square, and I had to trim off nearly an inch of extra fabric to keep with proper sizing. This made me a bit irritated as that led to a lot of wasted fabric. Now I know to change my original cuts when making other HST in the future. I guess this would be fine when trying out HST for the first time, so you have enough wiggle room when you trim them to size, but since I have tried making them once before, I knew what to expect and kept my seam allowance tight, so cutting lots of pretty and expensive fabric was painful. Luckily this was just 1 block and not an entire quilt top.

Favorite part of the week: This week was a bit harder for me. We've hit the 2nd week of school and we are not bouncing happily out of bed when the alarms go off...at least I am not. I'm tired! There was not enough coffee for this week and nothing real exciting happened. We all have gotten a kick out of watching the new show The Masked Singer, we each have our favorites and have fun trying to guess who each singer is. This is the reward after getting all homework done. 

Annetta | After working on two other squares I would have to say that the week 3 square Denna has been my favorite pattern so far. This pattern isn't as busy as the other two but uses all the colors almost equally. I loved how the square was constructed. To me, it wasn't difficult at all, but it does look harder then it really is. It's got a perfect play with squares and circles all in one. Working on the crochet squares it takes me a while because I am making this huge 10" square with just a single string of yarn and a hook. On average I spend about 5-10 hrs on each square a week. After three weeks though I can see how I am getting a little bit faster and am able to manage my time between work, family and my other projects. What has been your favorite square? 

Favorite part of the week: This one is easy because since my son has started school we haven't had much time together as a family expect on the weekends. This time, my favorite part was going on a long family walk in the woods. It was pretty icy while we climbed up the forest and even one time my son went sliding down the hill on his bottom. At first, it was an accident, but the next 5 times after that were not. Our walk/hike was only 2 miles, but in the ice and snow that was enough to last us all day. Like always I added a couple of images from my favorite part of the week at the bottom.