Anna Bright Design

Back in June, I rather optimistically named this the Granny-a-Day blanket. I was inspired to make it by Kylie’s gorgeous blanket of the same name. Baby Ruby was due to be born in November, and I figured that if I made a square a day (easy! No problem! Right?) I should easily get it done in time for her birth.

Hmm, well, I should have known better. Each square took just under an hour to make. I had originally planned to make a blanket that was 7 squares wide and 11 squares long, with a fairly wide border and finished with a pretty picot edging. But time got the better of me. In the end I finished with a slightly smaller blanket – 60 x 10 squares with a simple double crochet border. It is just the right size for a baby cot, and I must admit that, although not exactly what I had envisioned, I am pleased with how it turned out.

So, here are the details:

Yarn: A mixture of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK.

Crochet hook: 4mm

Pattern: Just a collection of crochet granny squares. There is a great tutorial on how to make them on Crochet Cabana’s website.

Notes: I love Asiye’s restrained use of colour in her Falsebay Baby Blanket, and decided to follow her example. I used four colours: white, bright pink, lilac and pale green. I kept the order in which the colours progressed within each square the same, and rotated which colour was in the centre.

I crocheted rather than sewed the squares together. There is a good tutorial on how to do this here, although I joined mine with the wrong sides facing so that the resulting ridges were visible from the front.

All in all, given: how crochet makes my wrist hurt; and that I really do prefer knitting; and that I seemed to spend every free moment towards the end doing nothing but make-more-squares; and that it still ended up smaller than I hoped; and that it ended up being a Christmas not a birth gift, I think that this blanket turned out all right!

There is going to be a new baby in our family in November.* I’ll give more details later, but for now suffice it to say that there will be a fair amount of baby knitting going on here in the next few months.

To kick off, I want to make a cot blanket. We found out this week that the baby will be a girl, which means I could go yarn shopping and make a start on it. Inspired by Kylie, I decided to crochet a granny-a-day blanket. I love Asiye’s restrained use of colour in her seablue afghan, and have decided to make this blanket in just four colours: cerise, lilac, pale green and white.

My first idea was to make  five-round squares with both the centre and the edge of each square pink. However, I thought these looked a bit uniform, and were also too pink for my liking.

My second idea was to make four-round squares with an edging of single crochet in pink, but after making a couple of them I thought that they were too small. 

Feeling rather like Goldilocks in my search for the perfect porridge granny square, on my third attempt I made five-round squares with an edging of single crochet in pink. I kept the same colour order in each square, but with the colours progressing from square to square.

I love this version! Having found  a combination that I like, I then got a bit carried away and spent the rest of the day making them. So, eight down, fifty-two to go!

If you don’t know how to make granny squares, and would like to have a go, there is a great tutorial on Crochet Cabana.

* it’s not mine!