Hip to be Square CAL – Joining

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:

WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
WEEK 5
WEEK 6

Now we are ready to join them all together. I shared with you all in the last couple of weeks what the squares look like all laid out and ready to join. As a reminder, I laid them all out like this:

We are still using the I/9 5.5mm hook for joining. I chose to use Color F (Red Heart SS in Soft Navy) for my joining stitches. The dark blue really pops against the teal borders of the squares!

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 and intricate, I didn’t want to the joining method to outshine all those beautiful squares! I chose to use the “Flat Surface Slip Stitch” to join all of these granny squares together. Some people refer to this method as the “Zipper Join” because the stitches look similar to a zipper when you are finished!

I followed this awesome tutorial from Crystals and Crochet. If you follow that link, you will find step by step instructions with pictures. Some people (me included!) have a better time learning new techniques by watching a video.

I started with the bottom right corner of my blanket. I am right handed, so when I crochet it works up right to left. If you are a left handed crocheter, joining might be easier for you worked left to right. I joined the first two squares, then attached the next two across the row. This left me with three panels. Each panel should be 6 squares across and 2 squares down. I attached each panel according to the blanket pattern.You will be left with all 36 squares joined horizontally (long ways). Then turn your work and work the same joining stitch across.

If you want to try this method, don’t bind off when you have finished joining the first two squares.  Lay the next two squares next to each other as before and continue slip stitching them together as instructed above.  You can attach any number of squares in this fashion.  The idea is that you join all the squares in one direction first and then join all the squares in the other direction.

This method works up like a grid. Lucy from Attic24 does a step by step photo tutorial on her blog that will show you how to do this.  As you complete each “row” of the joining, be sure to make a good knot at each end and leave a bit of a tail. We will be crocheting over these loose ends when we do the border stitches next week!

The “right” side of your work will look like this:

The “wrong” side has a seamless look:

Please join us in the Couch Surfer Crocheters group on Facebook if you haven’t already! I would love to see all of your squares joined up. We are almost done! I hope you have enjoyed this pattern! If you want to try another Crochet Along after this, check out the Mixed Stitch Blanket CAL! It works up in rows of varying stitches each week! Also feel free to follow me and tag me on Instagram and share your progress there!

When they are all joined together it looks like this:

Happy crocheting!

Update: Now that this Crochet Along is complete, the FULL pattern is available as an AD FREE PDF through Ravelry.
The pattern is also available in my Etsy shop!

Please, please, please feel free to share your work with me! I would love to see your progress and finished pieces. Half the joy of creating is sharing it! You can post your work here in the comments, on my Facebook page, or you can join the Couch Surfer Crocheters FB Group!

If you are on Instagram and want to share there, please tag me @couchsurfercrochet. I’m on Pinterest and Twitter as @couchsurferarts!

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Looking for other patterns to try?! Check out my ETSY shop or my Ravelry store!