143. Crochet challenge: Starting the mandala, new stitches

Nice sunny day Winter Australia, my local news reporter says it's 14, in the shade, nicer in the sun, almost no cardigan weather (you'll meet her soon)

So Tzeitel and I decided to take the opportunity to crochet in the sun. Now if only it could stay still so we didn't need to drag the blanket around. 

So to start we checked for the colours the pattern suggested. 

Cream lime teal red orange and green

Not quite but close ish. Greens around here somewhere. 

First colour: red

Using red, 8dc in a magic circle- a what? We might need Mercedes for this (our local Hogwarts hopeful). 

Mercedes suggested we use The magic of google. We found a step by step guide on said magic circle

Ooh that's pretty cool, you wrap the yarn around your fingers and crochet into the loop and when done pull the string and 

A circle, very tidy. 

Next new stitch "standing stitches" to begin a new round. Ooh we did have to read it a few times, could the pattern be wrong?  It wasn't advising to loop over enough times for a double crochet, we read further nor a triple crochet -confused we googled and behold crafty.com. "British stitches are one step up from American stitches. So for example, the American single crochet is the same as the British double crochet. The American double crochet is the same as the British treble crochet." Ahhhh so lucky we read that else one dolly sized Mandala was gonna be humungus. 

Well, we'll have to undo magic circle and start again, and maybe make notes all over the pattern

Hmm someone stole the sun. 

Time to move the blanket.