Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Granny Square Blanket


I have always wants to do granny squares. Early in my crocheting career (haha) I attempted one and I think I was a bit overconfident. I started with a square that was way too complicated for me. My buddy Crystal is having a baby boy in a few months. I have a big bag of this gorgeous brown and cream colored yarn that I wanted to use but I wanted something a little different. I have been doing a lot of chevron type blankets. I needed a change and I wanted a challenge.

I searched my usual places (Ravelry and Pinterest) and found a super basic granny square pattern. It took me about 4 attempts to get the pattern down. Once I mastered the joining into a circle it is all double crochets and chains.

What I loved about this was that, even though it took me a month or so to make all the squares, I felt productive. Each square took about 5 minutes to make so it felt like I was finishing something. I made the blanket 5 squares by 6 squares so I made 30 in all. 15 brown and 15 cream. It was very satisfying to see the piles of squares grow.

The squares may be easy, but this pattern gets back at you with all the sewing in ends and sewing the squares together. Each square had 2 tails that had to be sewn in. This is tedious work, but I kind of love it. I just fired up my tablet with an episode of "Hart of Dixie" (my new favorite show) and got to work. Once the ends were taken care of I was left with nice and neat squares.

Now it was time to sew them together. I used my big crochet sewing needle and the cream colored yarn


First I sewed each row. Place the squares back to back and all the stitches should line up. I did a simple mattress stitch across the entire edge. There a a few different ways to join squares together. I alternated colors and sewed together 5 for each row. Then I did the same thing when I sewed each row together. I was worried that it would not lay flat but it totally did!


I am super happy with how it came out. It is a great size for a brand new baby!
 I can't wait to give it to Baby Jameson! (coolest name ever!)

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