Patio Project finished

It took about 7 more bags of sand to level off the patio base. I then put down the stones and finished by sweeping sand into the gaps.

Patio Project part 2

I've been working on digging properly. This Sunday a friend helped me haul all the gravel and sand. I bought 30 bags of gravel and 10 bags of sand. Each bag must weigh about 40 lbs. I'll be laying 30 16" stones. This stuff is heavy. Unfortunately, my friend was only available to help haul it to my house - not to actually help put it together. this hole since February and finally got around to squaring it out The depth of the hole is really only about 6.5 inches. The patio stones are 1.5 inches thick and I'll level them with the exisiting concrete patio. I started out by filling about an inch of gravel.
After every layer, I had to pack it down with the tamper. On top of this first layer, I put down some landscape fabric to keep the weeds from growing. I then spread another layer of gravel about 1.5 inches thick.

Finally, I put on the sand layer. It turns out, I'm still about an inch short so I'll need about 10 more bags of sand. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this project by the end of the week.