GRANNY STASH BUSTERS!!!

I'm not really big on making New Years resolutions, but this year I'm trying something new.  I promised my husband (hope I don't regret it) that I wouldn't buy ANY new yarn until I've worked down my stash.  The first week of the new year didn't see me making much progress.  But just this past week motivation hit!!! BIG TIME!!!  I came across a bag of chunky yarns in my craft shed (yes I have a craft shed....since we haven't had an extra room my husband allowed me to have the shed in the back yard to store all of my craft stuff in.  It is nice except there is no electricity out there....so if I get an urge to craft after dark I have to use a flashlight to find what I'm looking for.  We have recently acquired a room inside (son moved to college) and I am taking that room over slowly!!)  Anyways....back to the chunky yarn.  I found a bag of random colors of chunky yarn that I had used for making beanies a few years back....so I set to work making a Granny Square lap blanket.


 After that I found some fingering weight baby yarn that I had started making granny squares with last summer and finished a baby blanket with that. 



Next I pulled out some blue and white and yes....another granny square blanket has emerged. 



Because I do a lot of crochet for charity, I quite often have people give me their left over yarn, or they will find a bag of yarn at a yard sale and buy it for me.  Sometimes in those bags of yard sale finds are already completed granny squares!!!  I am now working on a black, red and white granny square lap blanket made with some donated squares.  But I only had 9 squares and I needed 10 for the blanket I had in mind, soooo I dug through my stash and found some yarn that was close enough to make the last granny square....it's taking shape quite nicely if I say so myself.  (that blank spot in the middle with eventually be filled with black crochet!!!)



  All of this stash busting effort was begun this past Wednesday (today is Saturday!!)  Needless to say, my house is surely not as clean as I would like for it to be....but I'm definitely Bustin' some Stash!!!! 

The basic granny square is not something I ever really think about needing a pattern for.  Once you learn it you can do up variations of it without much thought at all.  But for those of you looking for patterns I have provided my basic granny pattern at the end of this blog. 

Connecting, connecting, connecting....how to connect those squares?!?!?   There are many ways to connect your granny squares.  You can use needle and thread method and just whip stitch them together.  But I find that this takes a long time and if the blanket you are making gets a lot of use it can come undone.  Although I DO prefer this method for assembling squares for clothing because the seams lie flat. 

I actually prefer to slip stitch my squares together as I crochet the last round, doing a slip stitch in between each set of 3 dc.  (shown below



Sometimes I am working up squares made by others.  In this case I like to do a chain type slip stich (shown in the blue and white baby blanket below)


So I hope you've been motivated to "Bust some Stash" as you've read through this blog.  Please feel free to comment and post your own progress.!!!


BASIC GRANNY SQUARE PATTERN

Rnd 1:  Ch 4, working in 4th ch from hook, 2 dc, ch 3, [3 dc, ch 3] 3 times.  Sl st in top of beg ch 4 to join. 

Rnd 2: Ch 3, turn.  (2 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) in first ch 3 sp.  Skip next 3 dc, working in next ch 3 sp [3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc] 3 times.  Sl st in top of beg ch 3 to join. 

Rnd 3:  Ch 3, turn.  2 dc in sp below beg ch 3.  *Skip next 3 dc, (3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) in next ch 3 sp **.  Skip next 3 dc, 3 dc in next sp.  Repeat from * two more times.  Repeat one more time ending at **.  Finish off  (or if you want a larger
Granny Square
, just keep going on in the same format). 

Comments

  1. Lots of projects going on for you Amy! I'm esp loving that Granny Square lap blanket.
    I'm in the same place using up yarn before I purchase anymore.
    Thank you for visiting MGCC. Sorry about the muffins, wish I could say what went wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Betty!! thanks for visiting my blog!! Yes...I've got lots of projects going on definately. But what crocheter/knitter doesn't LOL!! As far as the muffins go...I just had one for breakfast!! They are still quite tasty. I am going to try them again. I think I might have over mixed the batter and even the jam I used was a bit thin. I'm going to try a thick peach jam I made this summer to see if it makes a difference. Again...thanks for visiting my blog!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy, how do you do that second join? I just learned the join as you go but for separate squares I like the look of that one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sara if you are referring to the peach, yellow and white one, this is a simple slip stitch in the spaces shown in the closeup of the second to last picture. It looks very different because I did the last two rounds of each block with white to give it a nice "lattice" look. Then I finished it off with a border in the same granny square stitch alternating colors as I went. It definitely gives it a much more finished and planned look to it! Thanks for the question!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts