Hearts and Flowers Granny Square Single Bed Blanket

This granny square blanket is made of 54 granny squares which each measure about nine inches wide, in a 9 x 6 arrangement. It is large enough to use as a single bed bedspread.

The yarn used was Lincraft’s Double Knitting 8 ply acrylic. Each 100g ball contained about 250m of yarn. The blanket used about 15 balls of yarn, and was crocheted with a 4.5mm hook.

The granny squares are a selection of flower, heart and other patterns which were obtained free online from Pinterest and Ravelry. Some of my favourite granny square patterns are the Cow Parsley Afghan Square by Lettice Rose, Veronica’s Rose by Melissa Green, Spring Fling by April Moreland, Heart Mandala granny square, and the Grandma’s Heart Square by Carola Wijma. I particularly like the textured designs.

Once the granny squares were made, I laid them on the floor and spent time arranging them into a pattern that I liked. To stitch them together, I used single crochet. This is a really simple method that involves holding two granny squares wrong sides together, and carefully joining using a single crochet stitch through the top of each. Essentially a single crotchet stitch in each crochet stitch or space, but in both squares at once. Because it is a bit fiddly, I joined squares across the width (which was narrower), rather than the length, which meant joining the first row of six squares to the next row of six, and then joining on the next row and so on, working from the right side to the left side. Once all the rows were added, I then joined the squares down each length. This gives a nice raised single crochet finish and brings out the colour of the yarn chosen, which in this case was fuschia.  

For the border, I used the border pattern from 124-1 Bohemian Oasis by Drops Design, which is on Ravelry. It consists of 4 rounds. The first round is single crochet, with two single crochet in each corner. Because my squares all had a different number of stitches in the final row (varying from 26 to 45), I decided to make a uniform 40 single crochet along each 9” square, which meant counting the crochet stitches on the edge of each square and then spacing the 40 single crochet evenly. Row two is a round of double crochet, with one double crochet in each single crochet, and two double crochet in each of the two single crochet in each corner (giving four double crochet in each corner). Row three is another round of double crochet, with one double crochet in each double crochet, and two double crochet in each of the four double crochet in the corners (giving 8 double crochet in each corner). The final round has a scalloped edge. Start in a corner and chain 3, *skip 3 dc, 1 sc in next dc, skip 3 dc, 10 dc in next dc *, repeat from * to * to the end, finishing with 9 dc and a slip stitch into the third chain of the initial chain 3; adjust so that there is a scallop in each corner.

I really enjoyed making this blanket. It was fun finding new patterns to try, and making up lots of different patterns kept it interesting.