Now you have all these strips of solid color yarn and all of your brightly colored granny squares and you are convinced that I am a lunatic! Take heart, here’s where I show you how to assemble them all and make them look like something other than a scrap heap.

Begin with your first base color strip.  Starting at the very top of that begin attaching your granny squares. Now, you can do this one of two ways - my perferred method is to attach my granny squares to each other first. Let’s assume that I’m going to do ten (1) rows. What I will do is take 10 granny squares and sew the bottom to the top of the next square.  OK you’re wondering how in the world to do that? It’s really pretty simple!

Stitching

Take your yarn needle (I like the plastic ones) and thread it with the same color yarn you used for your base stitch rows.  Beginning in the corner, taking care to use both of the loops on the square, attach the squares together. Make sure you do not pull too tight as this will result in a disfiguring of your square.  Repeat until you have all ten (10) squares joined.

Once you have joined the proper number of squares (I used 10) begin attaching them to the strip.  It’s really quite simple the premise is the same as above.  Starting at the top of your strip begin attaching the strip of granny squares to your base color. Repeat for the other side of the strip of squares.  Now just continue this process until you have completed attaching all strips and all squares together.

Neatness Counts!

We have not discussed at all what to do about all those little tails that are hanging out in your squares or your base.  It’s really pretty simple! Simply weave those ends into yoru work.  You can use a small crochet hook to do this. You’re basically just weaving all the ends into the stitches that you created.

Congratulations! You have just made a granny square afghan. This beautiful piece is a great throw on your couch, bed or as a great gift! Now you can begin saving new scraps for your next afghan!

Happy Crocheting!

Are your hands tired yet?? Chances are that you’ve created about one hundred granny squares and so far they just look like squares sitting in your tote bag! Take heart. Now we are going to look at how to join them together.  You will remember me telling you how much I dislike working with items that are not one piece so you can imagine how awkward I find these.  But, none the less, I recently worked on a super large project of making another set of slipcovers out of granny squares.

But, we are working on a granny square afghan and the tale of the slipcovers shall wait another day!

Let’s Assemble

First, decide how you want your squares laid out.  Now I have a rather unique way of handling the assembly of these. Some people prefer to just join all of the squares together and do a border all the way around the outside. That is of course perfectly acceptable, but I prefer this method:

Using your base color yarn (that’s the solid color we talked about earlier).  Some people like to use all black or all white yarn for this.  Chain stitch until you have reached the proper length of your afghan.  Chain one additional stitch and turn.  Now single crochet all the way back and continue to single crochet until you reach the end.  Chain one and turn and repeat.  You should repeat this until you have a strip that is two (2) inches wide.  Repeat for as many ‘rows’ of granny squares that you will have (for instance if are going to use 5 squares wide you will make 6 of these).

The set up is this:  Base color strip (1), square (1), base color strip (2), square (2), base color strip (3), square (3), base color strip (4), square (4), base color strip (5), square (5) base color strip (6).  This is for the LENGTH of your afghan, not the width.  Unless you want to you do not need to do base color strips for the width portion of your afghan. It can be done, however it’s a little more complicated since you will be working around the length base color strips.  If you want directions on how to do that please just drop a comment here and we will provide the instructions.

Work on this and we’ll talk about joining them together in Part 4, our final session!  Happy Crocheting!

Now that you have all of your scrap yarn in one place and you have decided on your border color we can get started.  Making a granny square is very simple to do.  So let’s get started.

Chain 6 and loop together

Turn - Chain 3 (this counts as first double crochet)

Two Double Crochet

Chain one

Create four (4) sets of three (3) double crochets inside the chain loop with one (1) chain in between them.

This now creates the basis for your granny square.  You can stay using the same yarn you are currently using or you can change colors here.

Now you’re going to loop your last chain to join the first group of three (3) double crochets to your last group of three (3) double crochet.  Use a slip stitch to reach the first chain (between the two sets of three (3) double crochet) and chain three (3) (making first double crochet).  Now create two (2) additional double crochets, chain one and create three (3) more double crochets. You have just made your first corner.

Chain three

Yarn over and create two sets of three (3) double crochets with one (1) chain stitch between them in each of the remaining corners.  Be sure to chain three (3) between them.  When this is complete you can change yarn again if you would like.

Repeat this process until your square is five (5) inches.  If you’ve been using a Size G crochet hook you should have a total of 4 rows from the center (including the center).

Your final step will be a slip stitch to end the square.  Tie off.  Repeat on subsequent squares until you have sufficient squares to make your afghan.

Our next part will talk about putting all of these squares together to form your afghan!

Happy Crocheting!

If you’ve been working on a variety of projects, chances are that you have accumulated a lot of leftover yarn.  Most of the time these scraps are not sufficient to make a single item. You can use all of your scrap yarn and make a great looking afghan that is suitable for gift giving.  Stop rolling your eyes! It’s easy to make and you have the added benefit of using up all of those partially used balls of yarn, regardless of the color or the type of yarn they are (though I do not recommend chenille yarn mixed with acrylics!).

So our next project is going to be a granny square afghan.  Before we begin talking about the pattern here’s what you need to do:

A)  Pull out all of your partially used skeins of yarn

B)  Sort them out by color schemes (reds, greens, blues, yellows, oranges, pinks, purples, browns, blacks)

C) Decide on the size you want your finished afghan

D) Decide what size you want your squares (a size G hook makes perfect 5″ squares)

F)  Decide on a base color - you can elect to use black, white or any other color your prefer. The base color is  going to provide the ‘foundation’ for your granny square afghan.

Get a tote bag, a pair of scissors and a small lunch bag for tossing in your extra yarn scraps.

Follow us to our next posting to see how to get started!

I don’t how many readers of this blog are sports fan, but I for one am!  I love football especially - but what I really don’t like is when the sun starts dropping in the horizon I get cold.  With this cold and miserable winter, I was trying to figure out what I could make that would be quick, simple and useful.

So, I decided that I wanted to make something that could easily be carried to my next football outing.   One of the problems with acrylic yarns is that no matter which stitches you use the product is very heavy.  Who wants to carry a five pound blanket with them to a football game? Not me.  So I decided to do some experimenting and see what happened!

The Idea

So the entire premise here is to make a throw that is going to be fairly warm, lightweight and washable.  Simply enough any type of sports venue means dripping food, spilled drinks and dirt and dust - so the throw must be washable (and preferably dryable).

First the Yarn

We’ve already discussed the problems with acrylic yarns. Now wool yarns are nice but frankly, they itch and not all of them are washable. I’m not a big fan of wool anyway.  Silk yarn is great too, but again, not really super washable.  So I decided to try a medium weight chenille yarn.   You can purchase the cakes of this yarn at a very reasonable price using eBay auctions.  In fact, I got 8 cakes for $7 in an auction (paid more than that for shipping).  Fortunately, this yarn is the perfect blend of washable, dryable, and offers the added benefit of not being heavy when the garment is complete.  It also folds up nicely into a small package!  Here’s the other good thing - if all you are using this for is warmth and for sporting events it does not matter what color you use. You can use one color yarn, a lot of colors of yarn or you can pick out your team colors!

Now the Hook

So you are going to have to decide what size crochet hook you want to use.  For me, anything larger than a “K” crochet hook works. I experimented with this and I settled on a “K” for the purposes of my throw.  Before I decided I crocheted squares of 4″ X 4″ using several sizes of hooks before I settled on the crochet hook that I used.

Now the Pattern

You are thinking to yourself - just how complicated is this going to be? Well surprise, it is not going to be the least bit complicated!  First, decide how wide you want the throw to be.  Create your base row (chain stitch) until the proper width is obtained.  From there, simply add one additional chain, turn and begin a single crochet stitch.  You can continue until you have reached the desired length of your throw.

Finishing Touches

Here is the great part about this - if you decided to make your throw all one color you can use contrasting colors and create an edge from the same exact stitch and simply attach.  If you are not interested in a particular edge you can simply cut strands and make a fringe for each of your four corners.

Note: I am experimenting!  We have all seen ‘Quillows’ (i.e. the quilt that folds into a pillow). I’m trying to see if I can determine just how to make this addition to this throw.  If I succeed, you will find the update in my next post.

Until then, Happy Crocheting!

I recently bought a batch of yarn on eBay and it turned out to be a chenille yarn which I had neve worked with before. But, there are some really simple to make and easy projects that come out great with this yarn!  Since I’d never worked with it before it felt a little odd, but let me share a quick and simple pattern for a dog towel with you.

Now I bathe my dog year round and he really does hate to be wet - and I really hate using my bathroom towels on him because frankly he loses a lot of hair when he bathes - he’s a pomeranian - so I decided that this stuff might be perfect for him.  So here goes a very quick pattern that is sure to make you happy.

First, measure your dog from the base of his neck to the base of his tail and then from his ‘tallest’ point on his back down to about his knees.  Once you have this done it’s as simple as a single crochet stitch!

For mine, I used a “L” Crochet hook (this stuff is pretty thick) and I chained 50 across plus one and then turned and used a single crochet row after row.  My particular towel used one four (4) ounce skein of off white chenille yarn and when I was done I simply wove in my ends and it was done! This entire project took me a mere 1 hour and here is what I love about this towel:

A)  It is very absorbent! I was shocked at how quickly this thing dried the dog!  Rather than fighting with him to get him dried with an oversized bath towel, he now has his own personal towel - it’s awesome!

B)  It dries very fast! Another shock - with the amount of water that absorbed in there I was amazed to find this complely dry in one hour!

C)  It repels hair!  After the towel dried I took it to the waste basket and literally was able to shake all the hair into it! It was perfect.

Here’s the best part - the dog loves this thing! In fact he’s taken to napping on it as well (an added bonus).  Then I decided that it might be even better if I made a little hood for it - so I did - it was simple - I took my size “L” hook again and I created the hood out of yarn scraps (the same chenille) and a simple single crochet stitch - what I did was make two angled squares (i.e. they’re narrower on the top than on the bottom - read the chapter in Chrochet Mastery to see how to decrease stitches) and I hand stitched them together and simply attached them to the top of the towel and added a small piece of elastic to keep it on his head - now he loves running through the house with it after his bath!

I also made a ladies hat from this chenille yarn (and all single crochet again) so I’ll put that up later on in the week. In the meantime, Happy Crocheting!

Well we all survived our crochet projects over the holidays and we’re back to our more or less normal lives.  If you’re back to work you might be wondering what projects you can start that are simple to do.  Well, scarves, hats, granny squares all make great portable crochet projects.

I just made a hat that took about 4 hours in total and it’s all single crochet and it’s all one piece! Nothing could be easier than that.  In fact, consider this: It costs minimally 5 - 8 dollars to buy a warm hat in the store and you can pick up a skein of yarn for less than 3 to make a hat.  Of course if you add your time on that you might not  think that’s so much of a bargain, but if you’re like me and crochet while you’re involved in a television show it might not be such a bad deal after all!

I’m going to write up a couple of patterns for you (a) scarf (b) granny squares (c) hat and (d) a puppy robe (for after bathing) that I played with since we last talked.

In the interim, happy crocheting!

So, if you’re pushed for a last minute Christmas Gift Idea and you’re not sure what to do here’s a few suggestions!

A)  Got a friend who loves wine? Pick up an inexpensive bottle of wine and make a crocheted gift bag!  It’s simple to do with a single or a double crochet and a simple chain stitch can make a great ‘tie’ off! Just run to your favorite yarn store and pick up some holiday cheer yarn!

B)  Got a friend who’s into arts and crafts? You can whip up a great tote bag very easily! We have talked about a few patterns (such as the granny square bag) that work up very quickly and easily!

C)  Scarves - heck it’s winter right!  Most single skeins of yarn will make a quick and easy crocheted scarf from single or double crochet! You can make it while you’re watching television!

D)  Placemats/Trivets - your basic single crochet in a non-melting yarn (don’t use acrylic!) and you can make an awesome set of placemats or trivets in less than an hour for one single piece! Quick, inexpensive and unique!

Have some fun with it and share your other ideas with us! Happy Crocheting!

In a prior post I talked about how important it is to measure when you’re working.  Well, at no time has it been as obvious  to me than it was today.

I had finished the very last piece of the slip-covers for the love seat (talked about in prior posts) and was beginning the assembly portion (adding in the sides and adding buttons).  I started with the backs - well, I finished the side pieces and the buttons for the first one and when I went to do the same measurements on the second back you can only imagine what I found - this thing is 3″ wider than the first one <sigh>.

Since these are meant for Christmas I now need to really rush through the reprocess of this 2nd back (they’re 15″ tall but they are 25″ wide).  So, I need to get in gear.

Don’t forget to measure!!!

Happy Crocheting!

I am seldom working on one project at a time, in fact, I’m nearly always working on at least two (and sometimes more) …. depending on what else is going on I am using a different hook on each item to boot.

So you’re wondering what the problem is? Well simply put the hook and the work don’t always stay together! In fact depending on how tight your stitches are the darn hook can slip right out of there.  This happened recently to me on one of the large cushion covers (from this pattern) that I was working on.   For as much as the pattern has the hook size in it I’ve played around with it until I found the stitch size I was looking for and am using a different size hook that recommended.  Catch is I’m using 2 hooks on this one and I have 2 other projects going on - one for a different slipcover (which I’ll share the pattern with you when I’ve got it all worked out) and two scarves (see this post).  All of these pieces are using different hooks.

Well, I put down the large slipcover and was working on the smaller pieces and my puppy decided that it was great fun to play with the nice shiny needle.  So being a responsible pet parent I took it away from him and ‘filed’ the hook in my crochet hook book.  Well, 3 days later it took me almost 20 minutes to find the right hook (yep I forgot).

So here’s what I did - I put one of those tiny memo pads (from my local friendly dollar store) in my project bag - and I made a note of which projects I’m working on and what hooks I’m using on them (just in case).

Happy crocheting! Follow the adventures later today of the chair covers