Expert: Bea Harrell - 6/19/2008

Question
I'm trying to make the afghan that is a part of the "Baby Ensemble" from the Yarn Lover's Room website. The afghan is basically a square of sc through the back loop for 53 rounds. And then it is bordered with this beautiful pineapple border....my problem is the base row that begins the pineapple border...I have cut and pasted the directions below...on the base round it says to make (3dc ch1 3dc) shells around the border would you make the shell in one sc and just skip some chains in between...or do you think it means for the first round to make  a dc in 3 chs then ch1 and dc in the next 3 chs around and then on the next row you would make the normal shell in the ch1 space....the pattern 's not very specific

Rounds 4-53: Sc in back loop of each Sc and continue increase in corners. This results in 124 sc on each side of the square, plus the corner stictch.

Shells or Base for Pineapple Border


Rounds 1: Shells [3 dc, ch 3, 3dc can be made around afghan with corner increases of [3 dc, ch 4, 3 dc Stitches on this round are worked in both loops. There should be 20 shells on each side. The shells for the base for 6 pineapple points on each side and a four corner points. Therefore the points are worked over three base shells.


Thanks for any help,
Nina

Answer
Hey, Nina!  That's the worst instructions I've ever seen! I'm going to make the 124 sc chain, because it's going to require some math to get 20 shells spread over those 124 sc's, and I stink at math of any kind! I'll let you know as soon as I can, and send you instructions. In the mean time, maybe you can work on it too. Surely, between us, we can work it out!

Best,  Bea