The time has finally come to make a tutorial about how to make my Grannysquare Blanket, yay! Since I don't know how to write patterns in English, I will do my best to present the process in pictures. Basic crochet skills are required. If you don't know them, YouTube has lots of great tutorials or you could purchase the book Happy Hooker which is great!
What you need:
Yarn (I use double alpaca yarn), 3 different colours and 1 colour for the borders (I use off-white)
Crochet hook (I use this one, 4mm , highly recommended!)
Scissors
(& not in the picture: a needle for the finishing touch)
The amount of yarn depends on how big you want to make your blanket. You can of course use other materials such as wool and cotton. My blanket weighs approximately 1.5 kilos where half of the weight is the off-white.
Start with 3 chain stitches which you connect with a slip stitch, to make it a tiny circle.
Continue with the same colour of the yarn and make 12 double crochet stitches with 1 chain stitch between each double crochet stitch. Connect the last chain stitch with a slip stitch in the first double crochet stitch.
Colour number 2, 2 double crochet stitches between the first row's double crochet stitches and 1 chain stitch between each couple of double crochet stitches. A tip is to let the previous colour's "left overs" join the journey so you won't have to sew them in later on. Saves you many hours of work.
Join together like the first row.
Colour number 3, 3 double crochet stitches between the second row's double crochet stitches and 1 chain stitch between each three double crochet stitches.
The colour part is finished! This is where I usually stop and mass produce the amount of squares I want to make, to keep better track on the colour combinations (I always make each square different), before joining all together with the off-white border.
The beginning of the off-white border. IMPORTANT: The squares are crocheted together, so you do it as you go along. This to make the pattern between the squares, which I will show you below.
The border! This is where the square shape happens. Between two groups of double crochet stitches, make 2 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 2 double crochet stitches again. Repeat between the next two groups (I hope the pictures show what I mean). Between the third group of double crochet stitches, make 3 triple crochet stitches with 3 chain stitches between them and repeat until finish.
The finished square!
Time to make another one.
Second circle to become a square.
Crochet the squares together as you go along (IMPORTANT!). Why important? See below:
To get this pattern between the squares.
This is what it should look like when the squares are joined together.
A tip: Sew in the threads as you go along, it's more fun than doing it all at the end of the project.
Now it's time for the finishing border which will go around the whole blanket. It's only made of double crochet stitches.
Crochet crochet crochet.
Crochet crochet crochet.
At the 4 corners of your blanket you make 5 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 5 double crochet stitches.
Around the blanket you make 3 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 3 double crochet stitches at the same place. Repeat as shown in the picture. Where the squares meet I make 2 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 2 double crochet stitches at the end of the square and repeat it at the beginning of the next square. The border can be made with thousands of variations and here I present the way I make it.
There will be many leftovers, someone gave me the tip to put it outside for birds to build houses of. Imagine how colourful that house would be!
The result! I make my blankets with 14x12 squares. The finished blanket is measures about 125 x 105 cm / 50" x 40" and weighs approximately 1.5kg.
Good luck and LOTS of fun!
Feel free to visit my virtual tip jar if you found this information great and helpful, thank you :)
