These blocks are from the Crafty Crochet Community Block a week 2014 CAL. Most folks are using DK weight, resulting in 12″ blocks. I’m using lace weight acrylic-wool blend, resulting in 3.5″ blocks. I show each piece pinned and unpinned. I wet block the squares, but they need to be steam blocked, so they tend to curl when unpinned.

Blooming Lace by Melinda Miller (CAL Week 6)

Eight Pointed Flower by Julie Yaeger (CAL Week 7)

This is probably my favorite CAL block so far. The flower is quite striking and has the potential for a lot of detail with frequent color changes as I’ve done. The block features some nice relief, with two raised backpost-stitched edges to create a frame (in violet) and the background worked behind four of the petals, making them stand out a bit. The backpost stitches are a bit tedious in the fine, laceweight yarn I’m using, so I may experiment with doing surface crochet in place of the backpost stitching in the future.

I plan to do this one again in perle cotton. I think a combo of rich colors with a conservative amount of black would be very striking. I’m bookmarking this one to go along with Edwardian Fantasy for some future project.