It’s week 4 of the Ray Of Hope crochet along. We’ve finished the central mandala, now we’re starting on the outer pieces. We start with the Block stitch, also called the Floating Boxes stitch.

This is a nice easy stitch using just chains, single and double crochet stitches. Once we’ve finished the pattern, we’ll be adding a slip stitch border that will be used to join all the pieces together.

The free pattern is below, but if you’d like the ad free printable version, it is available either as part of my Lifetime Pattern Pass, or you can purchase it on its own for £5 from Ravelry

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If you would like to follow my colour scheme, you can find the list of colours in both Scheepjes Softfun and Stylecraft Special DK in this document here

The pattern is written in US terms, but the UK translation is below in brackets along with the abbreviations we will be using

• Chain = ch
• Single crochet (double crochet) = sc
• Double crochet (treble crochet) = dc

The Pattern

You will need a 3.5mm hook for this piece

Start by making a chain of 80

Row 1. With colour F. In the 5th chain from your hook make a dc (the turning chain counts as a dc and chain 1) 

dc in the next 3 chains *chain 1, skip a chain, dc in each of the next 4 chains* 

repeat between *and* until you have 2 chains left. 

Chain 1, skip a chain, dc in the last chain and change colour in the last 2 loops to colour G. Don’t cut off, you will pick this colour back up later. – 15 sets of 4dc/78 stitches

Row 2. Turn, chain 1, sc in the first stitch, sc around the chain 1 space. 

*chain 4, sc in the next chain 1 space* 

repeat between *and* sc in the last stitch – 78 stitches

Row 3. Don’t turn, instead go back to the beginning of the previous row and pick up your thread of Colour F from the previous row by pulling it through the 1st stitch and chain 1. 

Make the alternate turning chain in the 1st stitch. *chain 1, make 4dc around the 4 chain* repeat between *and* chain 1 then dc in the last stitch, changing colour in the last 2 loops – 78 stitches 

Rows 4-9. Repeat rows 2 and 3

For the colour changes, in row 4 I changed to colour H, row 6 Colour I, row 8 Colour J

After row 9 you can cut off and weave in your ends

The Border

Now we need to add the slip stitch border – change to a 4mm hook

With colour E (your joining colour) join into any stitch on the outer edge with a slst.

Slst into every stitch around the edge. You don’t need to add any extra stitches in the corners.

Down the sides, make 2 slst into the side of each dc, and 1 slst into the side of every sc.

When you get back around to where you started, slst into the first stitch. Cut off and weave in your ends. You should have 78 slst on each long side, and 14 on each short side

The border sits just on top like a rim around the edge. Don’t worry about bits that hang outside of the border like your carried threads. These won’t show once the piece is joined onto everything else.

We won’t be joining this piece onto the mandala yet, we’ll start that in week 5

If you have any questions, or just want to join in the chatter, come on over to our super friendly and helpful Facebook group – The Ray Of Hope CAL group