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Saturday 12 October 2013

Granny Experiments

I've been making granny squares my whole life - it's how my grandmother taught me to crochet, and I've made a number of rugs with big and little squares that are around my family's house, still in use to keep us cosy when it gets chilly.

Recently though I decided to have a go at being a bit more creative with granny squares!  You'll have to excuse the wonkiness of the work in the photos below - I took the photos without blocking out the blanket.  Lesson learned! 

First, I tried making quarter and half granny squares, to sort-of mimic patchwork.  I can't for the life of me find the link to the pattern I used (if anyone knows, comment and I'll add it in), but this is the photo of the pattern that I took:


Here's how mine came out:


It was meant to be 36 quarter squares, but I thought it was silly to make 4 quarters and then stitch them together into one full square.  I also learned how to do half squares, which was an interesting experience. While I liked the outcome, stitching it together was very tedious - I don't think I'll use this exact pattern again! I edged it by going all around the finished piece in granny style, then a shell in dark pink around the outside.

Another alternative granny afghan I tried was a Babette! There was no pattern for this one - I was aiming for a "modern art" feel and only found out that style was called a babette after the fact! I really enjoyed making the rectangular half grannies, using this pattern from the wonderful tales of cuckoo land blog.  Here's how it came out:


I really love this pattern, with all the different blues and granny sizes.  It was a bit of a challenge to join because there were an uneven number of stitches where the corner of one piece joined halfway along another piece.  I think just putting a chain in the middle of the last rows of each piece would solve that though! It's just edged simply with a row of dark blue double crochet around the edge.

The granny square might seem the most simple and boring of all crochet patterns, but there really is no limit to what you can do with it!

-Mich

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