doin the wave

I'm sharing my progress working through the Chain Reaction Afghan Project. It's been great fun so far to really expand my repertoire of crochet techniques. Each square in the blanket is designed by a different person using different techniques/skills, and is only 12x12", so I'm never bored.

The (uncreatively named) Tapestry Crochet Heart square was my first attempt at tapestry crochet, a technique I've sort of had my eye on for a while. It's crochet worked with more than one color, such that you're always crocheting over the strands of the unused color(s). I enjoyed trying out the technique, and I'd like to do a lot more with it, but frankly I think this square leaves a lot to be desired. Heart motifs aren't exactly my thing; that's fine, they don't need to be everybody's. But beyond that, this pattern had some quirks that I would have liked to change, but since the blanket is going to be a store sample I'm pretty obligated to do things as they are written. Firstly, the hook called for is insanely large. Since you're always crocheting over at least 1 extra strand of yarn stitches in tapestry crochet will be a little bit taller than normal, but unless you really want the strand of the unused color to show right through the fabric the fabric needs to be fairly solid. Secondly, working in a spiral doesn't strike me as a very good approach when making a square. There are two ways to crochet in the round; the first being to just go around and around in a spiral, the second being to join the ends of all rounds and essentially make stacked circles. Joining the rounds seems like a much more appropriate approach for making a square. Especially when you see the shape that you end up with when you make a square as a spiral:

It's so weirdly skewed. Now, to be fair this pretty much blocked out, and I don't actually have a picture of the square post-blocking before it got joined up with other squares. But seriously, why create this issue in the first place? It just seems like an odd decision.