Crochet Spoke Square

I have been playing about with crochet squares this week.  I'll explain why another time but for now I decided I would like to design a few myself so thought I would start with the basics.

I want to work on 4" squares.  Using a dk cotton I started by crocheting a circle of 12 trebles increasing on each round until I got to 4 rounds (48sts).

Now came the tricky bit! Squaring the circle! I divided my 48 stitches into 4 and set about making some corners.  You can see in the picture below how I placed the markers at equal intervals around the circle before I started the squaring.

It's not been blocked yet but after a combination of dc, htr and tr here is my basic square to work from.

It feels a little as though I'm reinventing the wheel here as you can look at numerous sites and easily find a pattern to create this basic square.  Having said that, working it out for yourself gives you a deeper understanding of the construction behind such a simple square and I can now go ahead and deconstruct/reconstruct bits to create my own designs.  In theory that is! We'll see what happens in practice as time goes on!!

Ok, basic square made.  Whilst at Sharpham last weekend I made a quick sketch of some of the plaster work on the ceiling (I had these squares in mind you see!).

When I got home I set about creating!!!! Now the observant amongst you will notice there are 8 'spokes' to this design.  Well let's just say it took me quite a while to work out that it is impossible to make 8 'spokes' in a circle of 48sts!  (If anyone knows of a way, please share it with us!).  I settled on 12 'spokes' eventually and here is the result.

Not the best photo I'm afraid as I am using up yarn from my stash.  It actually looks a lot better in real life but I think you can see the effect and if I used contrasting colours it would be more striking.  I'll show you the scrummy colours I have chosen for my project in another post when I have finished designing my squares.

All that's needed now is to work out how to add the bobbly bits to the design, but I think this could be a simple square design on it's own.  It's not for the feint hearted mind you, it took a bit of working out how to work the two colours in without colour drag and how to carry them along seamlessly behind the work.  Oh did I forget to take a photo of the back!!!! Whatever was I thinking!

I'm off over to Handmade Monday now to see what you have all been up to this week and I'm also linking up with Hookin on Hump Day but I thought I would leave you with this picture of the pretty pink sky from our lounge window late this afternoon.