My first crochet plaid

A while ago I saw a few crochet plaids on other blogs and the last one I saw convinced me to make my own crochet plaid. 

My own big plaid, about 150cm by 200cm in ivory, with star granny squares.

So, I ordered a book and found out that a pattern I wanted was one of the difficult ones.. That's so typical me. 

The book was in German and that made it even harder. 

I didn't know that the directions for the pattern are abbreviated, I thought there would be step by step directions and pictures, so German wouldn't be a problem... I was shocked and tried for over two hours to figure out the meaning of the abbreviations and how to do all those different stitches.  

A few days later I decided to buy a Dutch book that explained every stitch, with helpful pictures.  

Yesterday a dear friend helped me and made the first square so I could see how every stitch is done and how the end result looks.

Doesn't it look pretty? 

I probably need about 190 squares to make a bigger plaid.. So, I have a lot to do before it's Christmas, I would like to have the plaid finished by then. 

The first square I've made on my own:

I forgot a leaf in the middle row, so the last row isn't complete in the upper left corner. But, practice is good and I'll start again tonight for the real deal. Fingers crossed!