Swirling Blooms Square – pattern test & colour inspiration

I recently had the pleasure, once again, of testing a pattern for Pam Knighton-Haener from A Yarn of Serendipity: the Swirling Blooms Square.

Love at first sight! At least that’s how I felt when I first saw the design.

The pattern

Swirling Blooms is another Afghan block that matches Pam’s other designs perfectly in terms of size and stitch count. The pattern was designed using a #4 cotton yarn (aran / worsted weight). Depending on the size of the crochet hook used — 4.5 or 5 mm — the finished size of the square is given as 11 or 12 inches. This corresponds to approximately 28 or 30.5 cm.

The pattern is written in US terms and rated with an intermediate skill level.

My test version

My Swirling Blooms test version is made with Stylecraft Special DK, a #3 (double knit / light worsted) yarn. It’s a 100% Acrylic yarn with a length of 295 m per 100 g.

I used a 4 mm hook and my finished square measures about 24 cm.

The colours

Pam offers two colourways in her pattern: one with four colours and the other with three.

Aren’t they lovely?

This time I found it surprisingly difficult to choose my own colours! But it wasn’t a lack of ideas; quite the opposite. I could picture this square in so many different colours I simply couldn’t decide.

Ultimately, I settled on three colours: Duck Egg, Sage and Midnight.

While I liked the colours together, I wasn’t entirely sure whether the palette would work.

I’ve had Midnight in my yarn basket for ages, but this is the first time I’ve used it. It’s a beautiful, very dark blue — almost black, but much softer than black. Nevertheless, the contrast to Duck Egg is quite strong. Sage from the Stylecraft Special DK range is also lovely. However, it can sometimes appear surprisingly vibrant depending on the colours around it.

In the end, I decided to trust the process!

Pam’s colour placement is very balanced and it worked wonderfully: Combined with Midnight, Sage loses the vibrancy it can sometimes have and instead feels calm and balanced. At the same time, it softens the contrast between Duck Egg and Midnight, creating a smooth transition between the two colours.

I’m really happy with how it turned out!

I followed colourway 2 from the pattern and replaced the colours as follows:

Colour A — Duck Egg / Colour B — Midnight / Colour C — Sage

My thoughts about the Swirling Blooms Square

I really enjoyed working on this square! And I love those pretty details like the petals.

The design mainly uses basic stitches and I think even an ambitious beginner should be able to make it. The row-by-row pictures are very helpful as always and the easy navigation makes it really comfortable to work with the pattern.

I’m already working on a second one in a different colour combination, and I’m curious to see how much the overall look of the square will change.

Get the pattern

If you’d like to make the Swirling Blooms Square for yourself:

Swirling Blooms Square on Ravelry