Lily Design Book - Spiral Place Mat

This week's pattern is from the Lily Design Book #75 Modern Crochet with Lily Double Quick. I made the "Spiral" Place Mat in the lower right corner of the photo.

This pattern uses Lily Double Quick Mercerized Crochet Cotton and a No 3 steel crochet hook. I'm assuming that it's similar to Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread Fashion 3. I used the Aunt Lydia version in cream and green. A No 3 (2.10mm) steel crochet hook seemed to work pretty well with that size. There was no gauge, just a final size of 18 inches for the finished and blocked project.
I've only made a few projects that use this technique, and I forgot how much fun it was. You start out with one color and work until you get around the circle, take your hook out, put a stitch marker in, and then go back to the start of the round and attach the next color and work that until you get towards the end of the first color. You drop that color, put the marker in, and go back to the first color and work that over the one you just did. This means you never have to change colors in the spiral. 
The pattern wasn't without its issues. There were "Rnds" that weren't entire rounds, and I wasn't sure if that was a typo or if they really wanted you to stop after a certain number of repeats. There was one point where I ran out of room for the last repeat, so I must have missed something along the way.
Their blocking directions were, "Stretch and pin Mat right-side-down. Steam and press thru a cloth." I soaked it, pinned it, and let it dry. To take it to the fair, I'll have to re-block it. Some parts seem slightly uneven, and I think I can block it a little more evenly.
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Mine came out to 18.5 inches, slightly bigger than their final size.

Scoring:
Is the pattern easy to understand? Mostly. The last round runs a lot of text together, and it's a little hard to read. The "Rnds" aren't really rounds, and they could just call them sections. 0.75
If there is a gauge, could I match it? It blocked out a little bit bigger than their final gauge, but it was pretty close. 1.0
​Does it look like the photo? Yes. 1.0
Would someone use this? Yes, but I think it's pretty open for a placemat. 1.0
Did I enjoy making this? Yes. It worked up pretty quickly. I think it would be prettier in a smaller thread. 1.0

Total Score 4.75 out of 5