In my efforts to help my college roommate fully experience the joy of crochet, I have been trying out different squares from Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks that she had said were of interest to her in planning a poncho.

Of the three squares that I have worked (numbers 64, 98, and 173), not one has had directions that were completely correct, and two of them (63 and 173) have errors and omissions so egregious that it is impossible to correctly complete either square from the written directions.

So thank goodness for the excellent photographs which accompany each square in the book and have allowed me to figure out how correctly make the squares.

Today, I focused my efforts on Square 173: Big Round.

It starts, as the name suggests, with a big circle at it’s center:

From there, the circle is squared off and additional rounds are added, but when I got to the last round of double crochet, I decided it needed one more, and I also decided that a single crochet edge at this point would deprive the square of the drape it would need to become an awesome poncho, so here is what I came up with:

Uncertain of what join would work well, I decided I had better make a second square, and this was how far I got before it was time to pack up my crochet and start on dinner:

I don’t have a clear idea of what join will work best along the chain-2 edge, but I know I will have fun finding out.