Norwegian potholder: the back and finishing tapestry border

This is what we'll be getting to, but a few other bits happened in the day....

 Just loving how this deep purple looked so glorious, it's probably those pale lime green stems setting it off so perfectly?

 I'm on a weird diet at the moment, this was lunch.... Yummy scrambled eggs.

 Had a weird day, isolated and feeling lonely at home, ribs hurting and the studying wasn't going well....

 Thought I'd share how BADLY we need some nice new potholders....
What a state my oven mitts are in!!!! The burn below is courtesy of teen daughters who now cook, bake and have become brilliant at making huge messes........

 thinking of these girls at school ans being home I thought I'd cheer them up- GCSE s and exam weeks coming up shortly, stresses running high, much revision being discussed....So I baked a banana cake!

 MMMM, maybe I used too much banana? It didn't rise so well, they loved it though.

 It's 4-5 mashed ''brown'' bananas, 2 teaspoons mixed spice, 200 g self raising flour, 75 g margarine, 220 g soft brown sugar,2 large beaten eggs.
Mix dry ingredients together then cream in the margarine and then add the eggs and banana. Mix well.
Pop into loaf tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 1 hour?
Sprinkle with honey or maple syrup and dust with icing sugar. Yummy!

 A floral reminder to keep cheerful myself too...

 And a joyful vase, I so love this Delft Blue!

 And this was dinner.... No cake pour moi.

 Yes yes yes I'm finally getting to the point: the potholder back!

 I ''winged it'' with plain colour stripes and random increases and have used ( UK terms)- dc circles, trebles as well as half trebles.
The Pauline Turner guide is increase 6 in every dc row, 8 in a half treble row and 12 in a treble row- from the book I mentioned yesterday? So use that as a guide if it helps?
Mind you, I like the Anne Paal way of not counting stitches philosophy and just going for it, when it feels it's curling up work some increases and if it's too wavy, stop increasing...It's very free and relaxing.
OR you could repeat the pattern for the front exactly but all in one colour as one Ravelry lady has done?

At the end though I found that you DO really have to count if you've worked the back differently as the stitch count needs to match !( Well it only needs to match if you are going to CROCHET it together?) I counted in 10's and placed markers to help me count, I had 157 in my ''front'' end row but only 130 in my ''back'' penultimate end row? OOPS!
So I increased 13 times by 2 stitches by working 3 dc in every 10th stitch for the final row on the back.
156 PERFECT!I quickly ''lost'' 1 stitch on the front and then decided on my border trim.
I want to do 3 blue, 3 lime green so I need a stitch repeat of 6? Does 6 go into 156? YES , great so that will work!!!!
Now the colour tapestry technique is a little tricky but worth the effort so keep looking!
AND first I spent ages sewing in all those pesky ends...
Now I started with the border very quickly and did it on the back by mistake but see the photos:

 This one shows that the last pull through before you change colour needs to be with the NEW colour?
I have done 3 lime dc and the loop is blue?!!

 Meanwhile you carry the lime yarn inside the two potholder pieces.

 These are the two loops on hook from the third blue dc?

 Yarn over and swap colour so the loop pulled through is lime green?

This time showing the blue loop again...
Now let's undo that as I was working with the back facing me and I did not want the trim to be the WRONG way around.... the back and front differ slightly?
So I undid it and here it is with the FRONT side facing me.

Here's that blue loop at the end of the third green dc again?

 This shows you how I am crocheting the two sides together, picking up BOTH loops of the V from both front and back?!!!

 I have worked two blue dcs completely and now I am at the third one, 2 blue loops on hook just before doing the LIME GREEN yarn over.

 So I am picking up the lime green from inside the two flaps and dropping the blue yarn into the gap between the potholder pieces.Drawing the lime green out and to the back of the work so I can crochet with that yarn.

 See? A lime green loop on hook.

 Picking up the stitches that match front and back again to work some green dcs.

 Two green dc made

 The first yarnover for the third stitch is still in LIME GREEN?

BUT as soon as you have those 2 loops on the hook you need to swap those yarns over again.

 SEE? Lime green goes into the space and the blue comes out and to the back?

 And here I am working it on my knees while watching Grey's Anatomy tonight...

 At the end work a 12 ch ( or I used 16 actually) and attach as a loop, then work back over the loop with as many dc s as it takes to fill it up well . Are you ready? TAH DAH!!!!!

 I AM VERY VERY HAPPY now!

 AND here is the back? i LOVE LOVE LOVE IT, am I allowed to say that?

Plenty big for my wee little hand.....?! LOL.

Mind you I have a variation in mind, where I add one ( or 2?) more layers and leave a small opening so I can actually have my hand INSIDE the potholder?

I hope this helps and that you enjoy making one ( or many) as much as I have done these few days.

HAPPY CROCHETING!