Tag: Granny Square

A Few Projects from a Fiber Artist… AKA a Procrastinator

It’s been a while… well, a little over 3 months. I am sure I have taken longer breaks from blogging. I have been baking, but mostly things that I have made before. I recently tried a new pumpkin recipe that was a fail. It was a recipe for Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Brownies that sounded promising but, in the end, had no flavor whatsoever. That led me to a deep dive into whether people post “fake” recipes and I learned that thanks to AI people are now posting recipes that have never been tested and completely computer generated, recipe and pictures, in order to generate clicks, views and likes. Great! No need to worry though, everything I am bringing you today is completely real and created by me. While I haven’t been baking my fingers have been busy crocheting and knitting.

Up first a granny square cardigan that I made for myself. I made my first granny square cardigan a few years ago. It was a request – order – from someone and they were happy with the final product. Since then, I thought about making one for myself, but I didn’t want to make the typical granny square for it. After some research I settled on a sunburst granny square, which was a bit more involved than your typical granny square. I started making the squares last year and then took a break from making them, started up again, took another break and it wasn’t until this summer that I decided it was time to finish. When I laid out the squares to design my cardigan, I realized that I made way too many, so I probably could have finished it a lot sooner. Oh well! I’m really happy with how it came out, and I have quite a few of the squares left-over and a bunch of yarn in this color that I will need to decide what to do with.

Next, another item – a crocheted tote bag – that sat for a while before I finally finished it. It’s the life of a crocheter though. More WIPs (works in progress) than they can manage. Actually, only one of these sat, the other one I got done fairly quickly. I started the tote bag in the fall colors last year. I worked this up without an actual pattern. I had an idea of what I wanted so I combined components of two different patterns to create it, and I was very happy with how it came out. But then it sat. The hold-up, having to sew a liner into the bag. Since I was hand sewing it and I haven’t had much practice doing so I psyched myself out and just put it aside. This summer though I decided it was time to finish. I think I got into a kick over the summer that it was time to finish the projects that I had started and left astray. Truthfully it weighs on my mind when I do this. I see the project half done and I just feel like something is amiss, that things are unraveling at the seams because I am not finishing things. Talk about a metaphor. So, I sewed the liner in, and I ordered handles that I stitched onto the bag. Truthfully, I was very proud of myself for how this tote came out considering I had no pattern to follow. I was so happy with it that I made another one in shades of purple for a friend. This was the one that I worked up quickly. No lagging whatsoever. Probably because her birthday was coming up and it was fresh in my mind how to finish it. I am thinking of making another one so that I can actually write-up the pattern to have for future reference.

And finally, a knitted cowl. I’ve made a few of these scarves, the pattern is super simple. It’s the seed stitch and it creates a scarf that looks good in basically any weight yarn. This was the first time I made it using a heavier weight yarn and I really like how full and warm it will be for the colder months ahead. Truthfully, I had to make this scarf two times. The first time I casted on too many stitches and the scarf didn’t look good in the end. It was too short and bulky to loop around my neck, so I sadly frogged the entire thing and started over by casting on fewer stitches and it came out exactly how I wanted.

And now, I am looking for my next big yarn project that will hopefully not take me over a year to complete!

Granny Square Blanket

Recently I decided it was time to clean out my yarn stash. While some crocheters/knitters may save every bit of their scrap yarn, after a while I feel the need to purge it. Often, it’s not enough yarn to do anything with. I have thought about making a yarn ball wreath – I made one years ago for Christmas – but I just haven’t gotten around to it. I have a laundry list of yarn projects I want to make, and it just keeps getting longer.  While going through my yarn I noticed that I had quite a bit of Bernat Blanket Yarn leftover from numerous projects in an array of colors. Since it was so much, I thought to myself that there had to be something I could make with it. Of course, the best thing was a blanket. It is called Blanket Yarn after all.

At first, I wasn’t sure what pattern I wanted to use. I thought maybe doing a simple pattern and using each color haphazardly until it ran out and then moving on to the next color. But when I envisioned that it didn’t look very aesthetically pleasing. So, I decided the best way to use up the yarn and to make a somewhat cohesive looking blanket would be to make a bunch of granny squares and then stitch them together. Which I was a bit apprehensive about because I am like most crocheters… weaving in ends is my least favorite task when it comes to crocheting and there would be a lot of ends to weave in with this pattern. Which could have meant that this project could have sat for quite some time once the squares were done. Thankfully, I am trying to be more proactive when it comes to weaving in ends, so it doesn’t seem like such a daunting task at the end of my project. I’ve started to weave as I go.  Which has been helpful and has made some of my recent projects go a little quicker.

Initially I thought I would make some of the granny squares multicolor, but after making a few of them and laying them out with the solid color ones I made I didn’t like how it looked. So I decided to stick with making all the squares a solid color.

Which meant that I did have to buy a few skeins of yarn to make sure I had enough yarn to make all of the squares I would need. Thankfully (but unfortunately) I was able to get them at JoAnn’s during their going out of business sale at a discount. This also meant that it was easier for me to create a somewhat pattern with the squares.

So, once all my squares were done (and the ends weaved in) I began to lay them out to figure out the best position for each of them.

Once I was happy with the placement of all the squares, it was time to sew them together to form the rows and then sew all the rows together to finish the blanket. One thing I noticed about the yarn while making the squares was that even though they were all the same weight (Super Bulky) the texture was a bit different for some of the colors. Some of the yarn I’ve had for over 5 years, and I am thinking that over the years the manufacturer has made the yarn a bit smoother/silkier. Which kind of left the border of my blanket looking a little wonky and unfinished. So, after all the squares were sewn together, I decided to add a simple border in a contrasting color. I was very happy with the final product.

Granny Square Tote Bag – Red Heart All In One Granny Square Yarn

Most crocheters / knitters would agree that the worst part of any project is weaving in the ends. If you are unfamiliar with what that means, it’s basically weaving the ends of the yarn into your finished project. This is especially the worst when you create something with multiple yarn colors, like granny squares!

So, I was excited when I saw that Red Heart created a yarn that would minimize ends with granny squares with their new Red Heart All in One Granny Square Yarn. The yarn also takes the guesswork out of selecting colors for the granny squares, although I wasn’t all that thrilled with the color selections. I did find one that I liked, I just had to get my eyes used to crocheting with black yarn. There is a funny saying that goes “If someone makes you something out of yarn, they like you. If they make it out of black yarn, they love you.” Not sure who said it, but there is a lot of truth in it. My mom used to crochet, and she would avoid dark colors (if possible) when working on a project. Working with darker colors requires ample lighting to reduce the strain on your eyes as you work so you don’t miss any stitches. Which can slow your progress down as well. For me personally I can crochet much quicker (and with less mistakes) when working with lighter colors.

Now, while most patterns for granny squares are the same with just a few tweaks here and there, I opted to follow the pattern that came with the yarn as opposed to the one I normally use just to be sure that my granny squares would work up “properly.” Well, right off the bat I realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed. I was constantly frogging (ripping out the yarn) and adjusting my tension to get the colors to line up for the different rounds of the square. There was always a round or two that was off which meant I would have to start the round again. I decided to read the reviews for the yarn on their website to see if there were any tricks or suggestions and what I found was a bunch of negative reviews. I was determined though. Ultimately, I ended up with 15 granny squares that required a lot of patience!

So, what to do with the 15 squares? For a moment I thought of buying a few more skeins of the yarn to make a throw, but I quickly tossed that idea out. I really didn’t feel like working with the yarn again to make more granny squares after all the trouble it was to create the initial 15. I decided on a tote bag instead. I had recently finished another granny square tote bag so why not make another. One thing though, I was going to need more granny squares. I needed a total of 19 granny squares for the basic design I was thinking of. So, I ended up crocheting 7 granny squares in black yarn – straining my eyes once more.

As I mentioned this tote bag was my second granny square bag. After crocheting and stitching together the squares for the first one I decided to add a liner to the bag to give it more structure and to prevent it from stretching when carrying anything in it. This was a daunting task. While I own a sewing machine, I had no clue how to use it for the longest time. I tried once and it was a complete failure. So, to add the liner to the bag I did it completely by hand. Overall, it didn’t come out too bad, but it’s definitely not stitched into the bag completely straight.

Well, for this new bag I learned how to use my sewing machine. My local library had a “class” where you could bring in your machine and an instructor would show you how to use it. Woo-Hoo! Well, almost! My first attempt at stitching the liner into the new bag was a fail! I practiced with scraps of fabric but then when I got to working on the bag it just wasn’t working out. I sewed the liner in, but it was atrocious! Not one to give up though, I watched a few YouTube videos (which I probably should have done in the first place) to get some tips and decided to rip the liner out of the bag and try again. And my second attempt was much better. I did end up stitching the liner into the bag by hand, but it was much neater this time.

I also ended up making this cute pouch with 2 remaining squares. I even added a zipper to the top!

So, would I use this yarn again? Probably not to make granny squares that’s for sure. While the yarn does cut down on the amount of ends to weave in, I am not all that inspired by the color choices. And I find that lining the colors up for each round is too time consuming and requires me to crochet with a much looser tension than I am accustomed to which I didn’t like. I ended up the squares that were limp and loose.

Granny Square Cardigan

While I’ve been crocheting for over 10 years it wasn’t until recently that I learned how to make a granny square. A little backwards since learning how to make a granny square is usually one of the first things you learn to make when you start crocheting. When you are pretty much self-taught though you learn things as you go and as you need. So, why did I finally learn? Well, I was asked if I could make a granny square cardigan and since I am always up for a challenge and I like to learn new things I said yes.

First though I had to learn how to make a granny square. Once I found a pattern that was simple enough to follow I used some extra yarn from my stash to test it out a few times to make sure I had the hang of it.

Next, I had to finalize the colors. The person who I was making it for had a color scheme in mind from a cardigan they already saw. They were looking for pastel colors so after going back and forth with different options she decided on the colors below.

Now, the fun part. I started making the granny squares. I made a few and sent her a picture to make sure she liked the colors once they were all put together.

Once I got the greenlight that those looked good I went ahead and continued to crochet more. Truth be told I didn’t have an exact pattern to follow for how many squares I needed. I looked at various patterns and pictures to get an idea. I knew that I had to make the equivalent to a size medium. From doing my research I initially went with making 30 squares and I placed them in the layout below. I had a feeling that it wasn’t completely right but I decided to move on to another part of the cardigan… the sleeves.

Normally with granny square cardigans the sleeves are made using granny squares as well, but, the person I was making it for requested the sleeves to be solid white and they didn’t want them to be granny squares. So, more research. I knew that when it came to making sleeves they needed to be tapered to accommodate a wider upper arm to a narrower wrist. But, I didn’t want to just wing it and start crocheting. I was able find a sweater pattern that had the sleeves broken down exactly as I needed them. The width on top was perfect to be placed in the center of two specific granny squares. I also went ahead and crocheted two additional squares and placed them in the empty spaces I had.

I started seaming together the squares for the back of the cardigan but I still had my doubts about the layout. It just didn’t seem like it was going to fit correctly.

I ended up crocheting four more granny squares and added an additional row to the back of the cardigan so it would sit better. I then finished seaming all the other squares together and then attached the arms and seamed them together. I tried it on and it fit perfectly.

And finally, I crocheted a border around the entire cardigan to give it a more finished look.

I am happy to say that the person I made this for was very happy with it. I may make one for myself one of these days!