I spent a good amount of my crochet time today attempting to work out the particulars of how I will join the cookies for the cookieghan.
After coming up with one solution that was more satisfactory than the others, but still not perfect, I decided to set it aside for a bit to allow ideas to percolate, and I then got out my copy of 101 Crochet Squares by Jean Leinhauser and made an effort to get caught up in the crochet-a-long I am involved with.
With my 5.0 mm hook in hand and various balls and skeins of yarn nearby, I got to work on the most recently assigned motif, Square 33.
This ended up being a more interesting square than I originally anticipated, in large part because of the construction of the central floral motif. The 16 single crochet stitches that comprise the first round allow for a flower with 8 petals:

The next two rounds gave the central flower and interesting, and unexpected look:

While the final round offered the opportunity to frame motif:

I enjoyed working on this square and am looking forward to using some of the things I learned from making it in a future project.
From there, I continued with the octagonal theme and made Square 67. Picking up where I had left off, I used a 5.0 mm hook and the same cherry red that I had used for the last round of Square 33:

I attempted to break out of my color habits, and used a pastel-ish orange for the second round which was comprised of densely packed double crochet stitches that made the motif ruffle a bit:

The third round, which I worked with boysenberry, was a lot of fun to make and helped to ameliorate some of the the ruffling of the second round:

Round four, however, seemed to bring back some of the chaos and unruliness of round two:

all of which was resolved with the final three rounds:

Both of these squares were fun to work, and each had its charm. I can hardly wait to see how the lessons learned from working these two squares (both based on multiples of eight) are expressed in my future crochet endeavors.
Great looking squares.Love your color choices. 🙂