Hey crocheters! I hope you have enjoyed working on this Crochet Along! These squares have been so much fun to create, and I LOVE seeing all of your color choices! We are in the home stretch! This week we will be joining all of those squares together, and next week we will be adding a border to finish! We are now done with the most difficult part of this Crochet Along : making all those squares! If you are just joining us, all the of the square patterns can be found here:
I wanted to use a joining method that worked up quickly but would also leave me with something beautiful. Because this blanket is already so colorful, I didn’t want to the joining method to outshine all those beautiful squares!
I found this tutorial on Carina’s Craftblog. I love the look but didn’t want to join the squares two by two. So I figured out how to do two full ROWS at a time. You will work your squares from the bottom right, working right to left. Here is the way you should lay out your squares:
Make 4 stacks: the matching ones from each week (the same pattern rotation, such as the “1 row of one color, 3 rows of one color, 1 row of one color” listed as “A”. Those are the 16 you made for Week 4. Lay out your squares:
A close up photo to help:
What you will need:Yarn: Size 4 (medium weight) yarn. I used mostly Red Heart and Impeccable yarns since most of my stash comes from Michaels stores!
***since I used yarn from my stash I don’t have an exact amount needed, but I know you will need at least 400 yards of one solid color to do the joining and border! I chose to use Caron One Pound yarn in Medium Grey for my joining stitches. It’s a nice simple neutral so it doesn’t compete with all those colorful squares!
Hook: Size I/9 5.5mm
To keep it random, I just stacked my “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D” squares and just grabbed one when I needed it for the layout.
To begin: Put your “A” square on the bottom and your “C” square on the top
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Ch 3 in the corner of the front square (the “A” square)
Then make 3 dc in the corner of the the back one (the “C” square)
Next make 3 dc in the next space in the front square (the “A” square)
Continue in this manner, alternating between the two squares until you get to the end. In the corner space of the back square (the “C” square) make 3 dc
To the left of your two joined squares, put the “B” square on the bottom, and the “D” square on top to continue across.
Make 3 dc in corner of the “B” square, then make 3 dc in the corner of the “D” square.
Continue in this manner, following the pattern for the squares until you get to the end. You will have joined 14 total squares from right to left at this point. It should look like this:
Do this two more times with your squares. Because this blanket is 7 squares by 7 squares the final row will be added last. You should now have 3 “sections” that have been joined in one direction, and 7 extra squares. Those should all be “A” and “B” squares to be added at the top. Once you have all your sections complete, join your extra “A” and B” squares to the top. Then line up your rows and join them, too.
This can get a bit awkward but it works up really fast once you get the hang of it.
Once you have your blanket joined together in one direction, turn it 90 degrees and join the other direction using the same method. When you get to the join between 2 squares, the space created by the ch 3 in a corner should be treated like any other space, so make 3 dc in that too. This time it will be a bit easier because it is all connected now.
You can sew in those ends now, or you can leave them for next week when we do the border. Most of those can be crocheted over right into the border to save you some sewing!
Before the border is added this can look a little crooked. Once the border is added to complete the “square” shape a lot of that will work itself out naturally. If you want it even straight you could always block it, but I found with my blanket that it worked itself pretty straight over time, so it’s totally your choice!
Join me again next week when we will put a border on this bad boy and call it done!
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This is fantastic!!! Thank you for the super clear directions! I may finally finish this Afghan ????
I would love to see your finished afghan!