FREE PATTERN: Granny 5 Petal Flower Square

Did you participate in Granny Square Day 2022 this week? It's not something I usually do, but on Sunday evening I had some time to myself (!!) while everyone was asleep (!!!) and there wasn't anything else urgent that needed doing (!!!!) so I decided to do a little doodling with my hook and see if I could come up with something a bit different for my contribution. 

Squaring a pentagon can be a bit tricky, but I think I figured it out! The trick was to make 5 pointed flower into a circle first, and then square the circle ;) 

Queue or favourite it on Ravelry here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/granny-5-petal-flower-square

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FREE PATTERN: GRANNY 5 PETAL FLOWER SQUARE
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Finished size: 6" / 15cm 

Materials

Small amounts of Stylecraft Organic Cotton in Buttermilk, Blush, Papaya and Gypsum
4mm/G hook
Scissors
Yarn needle

This pattern uses all US terminology

MC - magic circle

st - stitch 
slst - slip stitch

ch - chain

sc - single crochet

hdc - half double crochet

dc - double crochet

tr - treble crochet

blo - back loop only

flo - front loop only

Directions:

Round 1 (Buttermilk) - make MC, 15dc in MC. finish off. 

Round 2 (Papaya) - join to any stitch with sc. sc in each stitch around, slst to join to first sc. ch1. 

Round 3 (Papaya) - in FLO, [sc, (hdc, dc, hdc) in next st, sc] around. slst to join to first sc. finish off.

Round 4 (Coral) - in BLO of same stitch of Round 2 as you worked the (hdc, dc, hdc) in Round 3, join with sc. [ch4, skip 2 st, sc in next stitch] around, joining with slst to the first sc worked in this round. ch1. 

Round 5 (Coral) - ch1. in next chain space, [sc, hdc, 3dc in next st, hdc, sc, ch1]. repeat [] around, joining to first sc with slst. ch1. 

Round 6 (Coral) - sc in each stitch around, including the ch1 space. finish off.

Round 7 (Papaya) - join with sc in blo of the stitch after the sc in a ch1 space. [hdc, dc, (dc, ch2, dc), hdc, dc, sc, spike dc into top of dc of Round 3 below, sc]. Repeat [] around, skipping final sc on final repeat. slst to first sc to join, ch1. 

Round 8 (Papaya) - sc in each stitch, with 3sc in ch2sp at the point of each petal. join to first sc with slst and finish off.

Round 9 (Gypsum) - join with sc in centre sc of 3sc worked into a ch2sp of Round 7. [sc, hdc in next 2st, dc in next 2st, tr, dc in next 2st, hdc in next 2st, sc in next 2st] repeat [] around, omitting final sc on final repeat and join with slst to first sc. ch1. 

Round 10 (Gypsum) - [dc in next 3st, 2dc in next st] around, but do 3dc in the final stitch not 2. Join with slst to first dc. ch1. 

Round 11 (Gypsum) -  [sc in next 3st, hdc in next 3 st, dc in next 3st, (2tr, ch2, 2tr) in next st, dc in next 3st, hdc in next 3st, sc in next 3 st] repeat [ ] around and join to first sc with slst. ch1.

Round 12 (Gypsum) - sc in each stitch around, working 3sc in the corner ch2 space. finish off and stitch in ends! 

My First Crochet Afghan

Hi everyone! 

I hope you're keeping warm or cool as the weather demands - it's so so hot in Sydney at the moment, and Anne keeps sending me pictures of snow and ice! 

I am happy to report that I am still up to date with the BAWJ2019 but I'll save that for next week and tell you about something different today :D 

Allie and I are staying at my parents' house this week because my poor husband is working four night shifts in a row, and he needs to actually get some rest during the day. BA BA BA and some light shrieking at top volume is not the delightfully soothing serenade you might think it is... 

One job we've helped Grandma with is tidying up the old blanket box. There were quite a lot of crochet and knit blankets that we either never used or don't use any more. Most of them just need a wash and maybe some light mending of old seams, and can be donated, but we also found some treasures. One of the treasures was the very first crochet blanket I ever designed and made.

It's nothing fancy - just granny squares in 6 colours, about 2 metres square. Mum thinks I was 12 when I made it, and it was my project while we were on winter holidays on Hamilton Island or somewhere like that. No ends are sewn in, just crocheted over; the tension is highly variable; some of the centres have started unravelling (due to the lack of end stitching in...); and it has no border to secure the edges. It takes something like this to make me realise just how much I've learned about crochet in the last 21 years! 

I have many newer, prettier and better made blankets so we will unstitch this one into smaller pieces that can go keep some kittens or puppies warm at the vet or RSPCA, but I wanted to memorialise it here so I'll never forget the first blanket I ever crocheted!

What was the first crochet item you ever made? How old were you? 

New Project: Colour Planning Made Easy!

Hi everyone! 

The busy time is starting to finally tail off around here - I ended up leaving the Law Society job because it was too much for the fatigue monster to manage, then got a sizeable crochet order finished, and now the Carousel CAL has settled into a nice sedate rhythm (can't wait until we get to play with pentagons next week!). 

So, I've had a bit of a chance to pull out some long-considered ideas about how to make things easier for myself to plan out colours for crochet project. 

How many of us have done this before to work out a rainbow, or grades of colour for a project?

It's messy, takes up a lot of space, and gets yarn ends all tangled up (or at least it does for me). I've seen Lucy's gorgeous peg system, and a few other similar ideas (yarn wrapped on embroidery thread cards, paddlepop sticks, etc etc) but I don't think those would suit me. I need really secure, solid colour samples, that pack up really small and light, and to avoid using my terrible handwriting on anything! 

I do have the Stylecraft Special DK shade card (now somewhat out of date)...

...but it's not great for seeing how different colours look together. 

The solution? Two inch, two-row solid granny squares in each colour, with the colour name and number stapled on the back! I started with the new Stylecraft Batik range to see if it would work (only 16 colours at the moment).

Ta-dah! The staples are really secure, but barely show on the front of the square. I made a little chain string for them out of scrap yarn and a button, and now they are hanging on one of my drawer handles, ready to pick colours! 

Next stop: the Special DK, which currently has 74 colours (gulp).

In anticipation of getting around to doing this, I've been making a solid granny square out of each colour as I pick them up to work something. There's... 30 so far. A long way to go, but once it's done it should be far far easier to choose colours for a project! My husband is tracking down a large hinged plastic or metal ring that I can string the squares onto, so it's easier to just open the ring at the colour you want rather than having to pull them all off. 

EDIT: Giant Hinged Rings are called Jailer's Keyrings! Thanks craftymummy! 

Now, I am spoiled by mostly working in my fave Stylecraft yarns, but if you have a range of brands in your stash, you could mix up all the colours of the same weight (just add the brand and "model" to the paper tag) and put them all on one ring! 

Do you have a colour sample collection like this? Would it be useful to your project planning? 

PATTERN: Mini Heart Square Tutorial

A few weeks ago, I started working on my new afghan pattern, the Rainbow Hearts Afghan. It's the same style as the Rainbow Twist and Turn Bargello Afghan, in that it uses small squares in a particular layout, with the join-as-you-go technique so that I don't have to sew 1,000 mini squares together! 

I really wanted to put some secret hearts into the blanket, as well as the more obvious ones, but I just couldn't find exactly what I wanted - two row granny equivalent, cute heart that sits on top of the surrounding row, and in the same colour for both the heart and the background! 

This one from Petals to Picots was going to be too big... 

This one from How to Crochet a Heart was perfect for the heart centre, but didn't have any information on how to make it a square... 

This one from Mollie Makes was close to what I wanted, but the heart sat flat in the square rather than sitting on top, and required either two colours, or detaching and rejoining the same colour to start the second row, and who has time for all these ends! 

So, inspired and encouraged by the above, here is my Mini Heart Square, all in one colour :)

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PATTERN: MINI HEART SQUARE
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http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mini-heart-square

Materials:
3-4 metres of yarn (depending on what weight you choose - you can use any size yarn you like! I used my favourite Stylecraft Special DK for this tutorial) 
Hook to match yarn (I used a 3.5mm hook for this tutorial)
Scissors
Yarn needle for weaving in ends.

Terminology:
This pattern uses all US terminology
slst - slip stitch
ch - chain stitch
dc - double crochet
tr - treble crochet

Special Stitches:

Stacked Standing Double Crochet - sc into target stitch. Insert hook under two leftmost strands of sc, yarn over hook to do a second sc.

No Slip Magic Circle - I prefer this double loop to a single loop magic circle as I found I was weaving ends in with an extra circle before doubling back with the single loop - this cuts out one extra weaving step! Nerdifacts has an excellent picture tutorial on the No Slip Magic Circle :)

Working into the Third Loop- You will need to familiarise yourself with the construction of the dc and tr stitches to be able to find the "third loop". This is the horizontal bar that goes across the back of each stitch, just under the back loop. In this image from the Craft Yarn Council's page on how to do a double crochet, I've labelled the back loops and third loops for you :) The theory is much the same for the treble crochet - it has the same third loop behind the back loop at the top of the stitch.

STEP 1 - HEART CENTRE

Into a magic ring, (3ch, 3tr, 3dc, 1ch, 1tr, 1ch, 3dc, 3tr, 3ch) and then slipstitch back into the magic ring. Pull on the end to tighten the magic ring. This forms the central heart.

STEP 2

Have a look at the back of your heart, and find the 3rd dc you made. 

We're going to use the back loops of this stitch to move our working yarn up to the edge of the heart. Ch1, then slst into the first loop of that 3rd dc, then into one of the next loops, then ch1 again. The arrows in the picture below show the slip stitches. There isn't really a wrong way to do this, you just want to get your yarn up towards the top of the stitch without using either of the top loops of the stitch or the third loop.

STEP 3

Once you've found the third loop of the third DC, do a stacked standing dc into that loop. Ch1.

STEP 4

Now we need to find the next loop, which is the 3rd loop of the 4th dc, so skip
(1ch, 1tr, 1ch) and locate that third loop.

Into this loop do (3dc, 2ch, 3dc, 1ch). One corner made!

STEP 5

Now comes the tricky part! Locate the second last tr of the heart:

and then find the 3rd loop of that tr:

Do another (3dc, 2ch, 3dc, 1ch) into that loop.

STEP 6

Find the FIRST TREBLE stitch that you made. It might seem like we're making the heart square asymmetrical, but I promise it's this that makes the heart look straight on the square! Locate the 3rd loop of this stitch, and do (3dc, 2ch, 3dc, 1ch) into that loop.

STEP 7

Now we're back to where we started, woohoo! You need to be careful that you use the same loop that you did to start... 

... and that you insert your hook to make the stitches in such a way that your first stacked dc and the trail of slip stitches and chains behind it are all to the left of your hook.

Make (3dc, 2ch, 2dc) in that loop, and then slst to the top of your first stacked standing dc. Finish off, and weave in your ends.

Tadah! A Mini Heart Square, the same size as 2 rows of granny square, all in one colour :) 

FRONT:

BACK: 

Of course, if you want to make your heart a different colour to the background, you can either use Mollie Makes's pattern linked at the top, or this pattern and simply finish off the heart, and start your new colour afresh at Step 3 of this tutorial :) 

PATTERN: Happy Granny Blanket (Translated from Vivre Au Crochet)

Good Morning!

A few days ago Lucie from Vivre au Crochet asked if we could translate her blanket pattern into English and we were happy to agree as the blanket is a real beauty. It is a blanket made out of granny clusters and because of its unique layout, it looks rather sophisticated. All pics in this post belong to Lucie! If you finish a blanket with this pattern, Lucie and we would love to see it! Post it our Facebook pages (Crochet Between Worlds and Vivre au Crochet) if you like. :-)
 

Pattern: Happy Granny Blanket

For this blanket, you need 10 different colours of the same yarn. Lucie used Red Heart Soft Classic in:

red
pink
bright pink
yellow
turquoise
cyan
forest green
soft green
electric blue
ivory

and a 6mm hook.  You can follow Lucie’s colour scheme by using the following chart. 

I reckon it would also look great with one of the Stylecraft Colour Packs, don’t you think? The blanket made with Stylecraft Special DK would be smaller though, as the Red Heart Soft Classic is an Aran yarn.

For this pattern, you need to know how to make Granny Squares. There are several good tutorials on the net and on YouTube. I recommend this tutorial from BunnyMummy and this one from LittleTinBird.

For sewing the grannies together, I recommend either of the following tutorials:

Crochet Grannies together from BunnyMummy,
Crochet Grannies together as you go from Michelle. 

Your blanket should lay flat, thus I recommend this tutorial from BunnyMummy on how to crochet a flat row into sewn together granny squares.

Pattern


Step 1

Make 9 granny squares with 4 rows each. Add an extra row in ivory to each to theses squares. You now have 9 squares with 5 rows each.

Step 2

Sew the 9 squares together (3x3) to make a large square. These nine squares give the equivalent of a big square of 15 rows.

Step 3
 
Add 10 rows of granny stitches/granny rows to the big square in different colours (10 granny rows) - it is important to make exactly 10 rows. Start and end with the same colour. You now have the equivalent of a 25 row granny square. 

Step 4
 
Make 24 more squares of 5 rows each and sew them to the sides. You now have the equivalent of a 35 row granny square.

Step 5
 
Add 10 more granny rows to the big square (10 rows). It is important to crochet exactly 10 rows. You now have the equivalent of a 45 rows granny square.

Step 6
 
Make 64 tiny squares of 3 rows: 1 row of one colour and 2 rows of a contrasting colour. Do not use the colour of the first row made in step 9. Sew the tiny squares to the sides of the big square. You now have the equivalent of a 51 row granny square. 

Step 7
 
Add 2 rows of granny rows in two different colours. You now have the equivalent of a 53 row granny square.

Step 8
 
You will now crochet the border. Work into the gaps between the granny clusters. 1sc and 4ch into each gap. The ch-stitches will look like a little bow. 

Step 9
 
Add a row of sc in a contrasting colour.

Thank you so much Lucie for the opportunity to translate your beautiful pattern! If you do make this blanket, make sure you post pictures on Lucie's and our Facebook pages :) 

Sophie's Universe Part 8... plus a sneak peek!

Hello everyone! 

Thank you for all your lovely comments and ideas for hippo names on my last post - once we know that she's coming home from the Easter Show, the little candy Happypotamus will be christened General Millie, and we will see if she'll accept the Captain as her boyfriend/husband and become a Poprocks. Stay tuned! 

We love reading each and every one of your comments, on here and on Facebook and Instagram :) 

It was Part 8 of the Sophie's Universe CAL this week - only 7 rows, but they are getting pretty big!! We seem to be making a big flower along the "short" sides (which are now longer than the "long sides"!), and a crazy busy garden along the "long" sides. I got to learn two new stitches as well - puff stitch and cable stitch! I liked the puff stitch, less excited about the cable stitch.

Nicole has really sped up on her Sophie, now that she's comfortable reading the pattern. It's a pretty big ask when you've only been crocheting for two months! 

Mum and I joined Lunchtime Crochet Club at Crows Nest with Nicole and Kathryn last Friday :) We had a lovely time eating possibly the best fish and chips I've ever had, and working on our Sophies. 

Now for the sneak peek :P As you know I've been working on another pixel blanket pattern following the Rainbow Twist and Turn Bargello Afghan. Hopefully I will have it all finished by Easter so you can put the Rainbow Hearts Afghan into your Ravelry queue for a Mothers Day project!! 

The chart is done! 

The yarns are ready and waiting! My favourite Stylecraft Special DK of course!

I wanted to do something new for you though, so this afternoon I had a fiddle around with making a tiny heart granny square! What do you think?