Weldon's Fifteenth Series - Red and White Square

For this week's blog, I've attempted to make this square. 

They want you to make this with Strutt's red and white knitting cotton No. 8 and a steel hook No. 17. Strutt's Knitting Cotton No. 8 is a Perle/Pearl Cotton is about the same size as crochet thread size 20 and is actually smaller and more slippery than regular size 10 crochet cotton. Their size 17 hook is 1.5mm or a what I have as a size 8 hook. I typically use a 1.65mm for size 10 crochet cotton so this confirmed the estimate I made on the thread size. I had a stash of varied colors of pearl cotton in that size that I haven't used much of so I pulled it out tried it with the 1.65mm hook. And before I even made it past the first two rows I realized I hated working with it. It was slippery and hard to see. The stitches looked uneven and it just wasn't working for me. Rather than not do the square I decided to use a different weight of thread. I had some size 3 crochet thread which is much bigger in both red and white so I grabbed a 3.25mm hook and tried that. That worked a lot better. 

This square is worked in rows for the center pattern and then a nine round border is added to finish it. The end of the directions says that with the exception of the 8th round (which is slip stitches) this should be worked tightly to give it a firm appearance. The center is worked in triple crochet back and forth with the color you aren't using dropped to the back or the front depending on the row you're working on. All of the dropped thread should be on the same side. It doesn't say to crochet over those threads but leaving them loose seemed like a bad idea for something that was originally intended to be for a blanket so I tried hiding them two different ways. The first way was going over them on the same row that they're dropped in but because these are triple crochets that meant there was a floating thread going up to the bottom of the row every time I changed colors and it was very noticeable. I tried going over the dropped thread in the next row of triples. Because the dropped thread sat at the top of the stitches, going over it on the next row made fewer floating threads. This wasn't perfect, especially when the thread moved up to the next row. I could have cut it and restarted it but I wanted to try to follow the pattern.

Here is the back and the front where you can see some of the floating threads.

Back with floating threads.

Front with floating threads.

The border was pretty simple. It's done in back loops and uses triple crochet, double crochet, single crochet and slip stitches. The pattern warns, "It will be found rather a troublesome matter to pick up the stitches along the edges of the treble rows and the worker must be particular in counting them or the sides will be irregular." It wasn't that troublesome because I used math to figure it out how many stitches to put in the ends of each row before I started the side. I ran out of white thread and had to switch to gray and black but I like how this turned out.

While soaking it for blocking, I forgot to use vinegar and the red made the white thread turn pink it some areas. I think this could be a pillow cover; I'm still not sold on the blanket plan for this. What else do you think it could it be used for?

Now for the scoring:
Is the pattern easy to understand? Yes. 1.0
Does it look like the illustration? Mostly yes. 1.0
Would someone use this? I think so. 1.0
​Did I enjoy making it? Yes. 1.0