September 11, 2021

Here goes nuthin’ ….

September 17, 2021

Ok, mods so far:

• Section 1 pentagons: used 3 dc instead of 1dc, ch, 1dc. They still poofed, but I found idgaf

• attaching the pentagons: I used this method

• Section 1 black triangles: did them in rounds as described here

• the popcorns are … uh … invisible. This isn’t a mod, but I felt should be mentioned

• Section 2 row 18: Followed this suggestion to not cut the yarn, which was great to avoid weaving in all the ends, but instead of using slip-stitches to “skip” the stitches (since I couldn’t figure out how to carry 2 yarns with slip stitches???), I carried the yarns in the back of the skipped stitches, and planned to cover up those floats when attaching the heptagons.

• Section 2 row 19: Followed this suggestion to again, not cut the yarn, and make these funky sideways black columns. Loved this idea! I modified it further (since I was still carrying 2 yarns from the last row) by turning the work at the end of Row 18 and doing Row 19 from the back. That way I could use slip-stitches from the back (of the valleys), showing less bulk in the front of the work. Man, I hope any of this makes sense and helps someone in the future. Must take many pictures to illustrate this!

• skipped Row 20 as indicated above, my Row 20 was filling in the columns AND doing the black outline of the pyramids

September 28, 2021

• for half circles, started at the first stitch after the (sc, ch, sc) corner, did 10 sc, turned, did 4 slip stitches to get to the “middle” stitch (thought there’d be 9, not 10, whatever), did 7 dcs in the middle stitch, slip stitch to the next stitch, turn, 1 dc in the first dc, attach that dc to the first sc (drop loop on hook, insert hook into first sc, pick up loop), did another dc in same stitch, then 2 dcs in each dc to total 14, after the last dc, slip stitch into the last sc in the row, now you have a half-circle! Is this perfect? Nope! But that’s what I’m doing and that gives me a half circle with a-number-close-to 14 stitches. Any anomalies will be dealt with on the next row, which looking ahead, already has a lot of skipping stitches so everything should be great!

• tldr: for half-circles: did 10 sc, 7 dcs in middle stitch, 2 dcs in each dc = 14 stitches

• also: after you fasten off, use the tail to close the gap left by the last dc, if you want

September 30, 2021

Wow … filling in the valleys suuuuuuucks

October 8, 2021

Time to do the second round of popcorns, which I wouldn’t mind, but the color I chose for Teal is completely invisible next to the “gemstone” color so I might not bother and just do a round of dcs

October 10, 2021

Hmmmm…. after the popcorn row, are we really supposed to do 4 rows with no increases? no wonder this doesn’t lie flat, sheesh!

October 11, 2021

eff it I’m gonna add some increases and come what may … I’m gonna super modify the pyramids again anyway

October 12, 2021

I refused to weave in 7453 ends so I did the second pyramids in rounds using star blankets as a model. So increased a lot in the peaks and decreased a lot in the valleys. Will add notes later.

October 17, 2021

And after 8 heptagons, I ran out of Oceana

October 26, 2021

Restock of yarn arrived, back to making heptagons … yaaaaaay.

October 28, 2021

done attaching heptagons, time to fill in the black columns

November 2, 2021

I’m on the next-to-last row, and I’m sick and tired of these rounds with (essentially) no increases, I’m tired of the black border flipping down and not laying flat, so I am straight up crocheting 2 dcs in each stitch around the half circles and finally they are laying flat. Sheesh!!!!

November 3, 2021

IT’S DONE IT’S FINISHED IT’S MASSIVE WOOOOOOOOO