2020 has been quite a year, not at all what anyone was expecting. But it is drawing to a close. Christmas is less than 2 weeks away and that is the signal for me to finalise the Twixmas Mandala CAL. The testing elves have been busy and have helped me to refine the pattern ready for you, the final pre-Twixmas checks are in full swing and next week I will publish the introduction to the pattern.

Running a CAL between Christmas and New Year, or Twixmas, has become a tradition for me. It started in 2014, so this year is my 7th Twixmas CAL and it is now established as a Mandala (yes, I did do a blanket one year – this!).

This is not a difficult CAL, in fact this year it uses mostly normal crochet stitches with the only complicated stitch being the popcorn stitch. It is designed to be fun, something to pick up each day and add a few rounds of new colour. Colour is the main benefit for me – it brightens up my winter days having some colourful crochet to hand.

The pattern introduction will be available next Saturday and will be at a discount of 75% until midnight (GMT) on 24th December. The CAL starts on 26th December when Part 1 is published. There will be 2 versions – one written in UK crochet terms and one written in US crochet terms. There isn’t a chart for the CAL but each new round has a photograph to help you. A new part will be added each day up to 31st December when the last part is published.

Usually I make my mandalas in DK cotton but this year I made 2 – one in DK and one in 4ply. I find that the 4ply version is crisper because the yarn is finer, but I confess my reason for doing 2 was simply to play with colour – one is definitely brighter than the other! Of course you can use any weight of yarn you like, just use a suitable crochet hook.

To remind you of previous years here are the last 3 Twixmases:

These are Twixmas 2019, 2018 and 2017 and are available on Ravelry. To whet your appetite I have them on sale on Ravelry until next Saturday (midnight GMT on 19th December) at 50% discount if you use coupon code TWIXMAS.

Until next week….

Happy crocheting xxx