Granny A Day - Week 40

My red, white and blue blanket is starting to take form. Thankfully I decided to have a go at joining a couple of squares, because I found out that I'll need to join the squares in as I go during the white round as well as the outer blue rounds to avoid some REALLY fiddly sewing up afterwards.  Just a sneaky peek so that I can do a big reveal later ;)

I also managed to add a couple of rows to the baby blanket enlargement project.  I need to pick up the pace a bit as the weather's turned cold recently.

Granny A Day - Week 39

After deciding on a design for my blanket, the project took a bit of a detour when I decided that mostly white probably wasn't a practical colour for a blanket that would get used a lot (especially in this house), rather than being mostly decorative.  So I settled on mostly blue, but then changed my mind about the design. After much crocheting and unravelling of a test square, I've finally settled on the new design. I'm turning the centres through 45 degrees, so the finished blanket should have multi-coloured diamonds interspersed with solid blue diamonds, giving it a quilty/patchwork look.  The good thing is that I can still use all the centres that I'd already made, and as the squares are going to be a little bit bigger I might get away with making fewer.

Granny A Day - Weeks 35 and 36

The last 3 weeks of the school holidays were manic! But while we were away on holiday I got my Granny-A-Day mojo back. I've known that I wanted to make a red, white and blue blanket ever since I finished a scarf for baby boy in that colour scheme, but never got around to doing anything about it apart from buying the yarn. I always work best when I have a clear plan laid out, so I sat down and worked out a block arrangement, and the crochet flowed easily.

The blocks will have a 3-row granny square at the centre in solid red, white or blue, surrounded by 3 rows in red or blue, surrounded by 3 rows in white, and I plan to make it 8x8 blocks which should give a nice man-sized blanket. So far I've made 48 out of the 64 centres that I need. I'm really looking forward to seeing it finished.

Granny A Day - Week 18

Well I think it's fair to say that I've failed miserably at the Granny A Day challenge!  I'm still producing the occasional square but by no means keeping up with one a day.  The baby blanket enlargement project goes on, I've made a few patriotic squares inspired by my red, white and blue baby scarf (one of which is now a lovely pincushion) and a headband, which started off as a present but that I've ended up keeping for myself. But I think that the challenge has done what I hoped and stimulated my creative juices. I'm definitely making more than I ever have and still have lots of ideas that I hope will keep me busy for a while.

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Granny A Day - Week 8

I'm still generating squares to go towards the baby blanket enlargement project so I won't bother posting any pics of them this time.  I did however do something with the red, white and blue squares that I posted about before.  I edged the squares in strips of 3 with a round each of red, white and blue in double crochet, then sewed the four strips together to get a very nifty-looking (even if I do say so myself) baby scarf.  I know - a finished project!!  So, ta-dah...

If I need to lengthen and/or widen the scarf then I can just make up additional 3-square strips and sew them on seamlessly.

Granny A Day - Week 7

I'm still behind with the Granny A Day challenge. I reckon by 15 squares. But although I don't have completed squares I do at least have 15 middles.

I still hope to catch up, but I'm finding it hard to find the time to do something with the squares that I've already made as well as making new squares. I am making progress putting together the red, white and blue squares though, but more on that later...

Granny A Day - Week 5

Well, I have to admit that I've fallen a little behind with my Granny A Day squares. But I managed to make 6 more red, white and blue squares, which will be joined to the others to make a little scarf for baby boy.

Speaking of baby boy, he's grown too big for the Moses basket and we've had to get the cot out :(  The blanket that I made for him is way too small for it though so I'm going to undo the edging and add additional squares to make the blanket more cot-sized. I'm going to need 183! Better get cracking then...

Granny A Day - Week 4

Last week I put the black and white square extension on hold as I had a sudden urge to make red, white and blue squares. I am alternating those three colours in squares with 3 rounds each. I was only going to make handful for a scarf for baby boy, but now that I see them together I think they'd make a fabulous blanket so I'm going to have to make a whole lot more!

Granny A Day - Week 3

Last week I decided to add rounds to my black and white granny squares instead of making new ones. I only managed to enlarge 1, but now that it's larger I really like it. I'm not really sure what to make with them though! I was going to make them large enough to make new covers for the living room cushions, but I'm also toying with the idea of making a new blanket for my baby boy who seems fascinated by them. I also like the idea of throwing in the odd small cluster of colour here and there or playing with the arrangement to get some sort of zebra print... You see my problem?

But the great thing about Granny A Day is that I'll probably get to try them all out :)  I'll be needing more yarn though!

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Granny A Day - Week 2

Last week, I continued with the mini squares, actually throwing in a couple of mini triangles (my first ones, which I'm rather pleased with).  I had seen a pattern for a granny square headband and was thinking that perhaps I would join the small squares together to make a bracelet or headband - the triangles would go at either end. 

Then it occurred to me that I'd never actually made a conventional granny square so I decided to take a break from the mini squares to try it out.  I liked the idea of doing them in alternating rows of black and white, though I didn't really have a use for them in mind.  I'm not really sure what I think of them. I might make them slightly bigger, or play around with the arrangement of the colours.  I saw some 60s inspired cushions that I liked in black, white and red, so I might throw in a bit of red and see how that works.  Watch this space!

Granny A Day - week 1

Well I'm pleased to say that so far I've kept up with making a Granny square a day :) The first one was made using the same pattern I used to make my baby blanket. But I decided to make the rest using some size 8 pearl cotton that I hoarded and don't have any particular use for. I'm really pleased because since the first attempt at a tiny square (the yellow one) there's been a definite improvement in the results (top 2 are the latest), and I've been making them to my own design, which I think I've now got right.

Granny a Day 2012

I agreed to take part in the challenge set by Ali from Hooked!! A Crochet Addict's Blog to crochet a Granny square a day for the whole of 2012! I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking as I've got a hundred other projects that I'd like to start or finish. But I do tend to faff around a lot when I find that I finally have some time available to do some making, and end up frittering the time away trying to decide what to make. So maybe this will help to focus my mind.  Maybe if I get into the habit of doing something every day it might inspire me to actually start crossing some projects off my ideas list.

And so to the squares.  Four completed so far and another in progress.  One normal-sized square (measuring about 7.5cm/3in across) and three teeny squares made using a 1.5mm hook. Why am I crocheting teeny granny squares?  Well, that's another story. I'm not sure how/if I'll make use of them, but it's good practice and a good way to experiment with colours.  The motif isn't quite right yet, but with a few tweaks I think it will be OK.