Mandala Madness - parts 17-18

So, the white and colour change mandala Madness blankets are done. This has been such an amazing pattern to do. I love how they have both turned out. I still do need to complete the black one so that all four will be completed up to the end of Helen Shrimpton's pattern. I can then square off all four of them. I have started to do that on the last blanket that I made. The white blanket is on my Mums bed and I have told her that I will do a bit of the squaring off when I come over and see her now that I know how it works.

The final parts of this amazing mandala madness pattern use quite a number of treble clusters. I can remember when I first did them all those months ago and thinking that I would never get the hang of them or that they wouldn't look neat enough. I am pleased to say that I really do enjoy them. They are not my favourite stitch in the pattern, but they are certainly up there near the top as they add such detail. I love how the "petals" (that is what I call them) are finished off and the treble clusters go in between so that that blanket becomes a beautiful circle. The final round introduced me to a new stitch, the crab stitch. This certainly took some getting used to. It felt alien to be going the wrong way around my work but again, I love the effect that it has achieved.

The burgundy colours of the slice o cherry pie Scheepjes whirl really come through and I cannot believe how well it went as I ended up with a very small amount of the whirl left (approx. 2 metres!) I really thought that would run out and that I would have to start the next whirl, the one that I was going to use to square off with. Talk about close!

So the journey on these b Mandala Madness blankets may have ended with the first part but I cant wait to start squaring them off and seeing how the circle becomes a square.