Granny's Square

On my mom's side, I come from a long line of lace makers.  The women in my history used that fine little crochet thread to make miles and miles of lace that decorated the edges of tablecloths, napkins, hankies, pillow cases  and I'm sure many other household items.  One of my Uncle Jim's favorite stories is of his Grandma Chris (short for Christensen) getting together with the other ladies in the neighborhood to crochet and gossip.  He remembers these get togethers from his childhood and says that it was hard to tell whether their crochet hooks or mouths were moving faster and that sometimes Grandma would get so caught up in what was going on that she'd lapse back into her native Danish.  The startled looks from the other ladies would get her to giggling saying "Oops, I forget me English."  For no lack of my mom's trying, I never mastered the art of using such fine thread and tiny hooks, but I can crochet some simple items.  I guess I'll take my family heritage where I can find it...

One of my favorite things to crochet is the granny square.  They are simple and the repetitiveness is soothing and almost meditative for me.  If you want to learn to make them, Crochet Cabana has what looks to be a really great Granny Square Tutorial.  I admit, I googled that just this morning because I knew that surely someone had already put the work into it.  Why reinvent the wheel?

Granny squares are most often combined into afghans, sweaters or winter scarves.  To get the gratification of finishing a project much quicker, I also like to make them into potholders.  Here are 3, well used and many times washed, from my kitchen drawer.

Actually the one farthest to the right looks pretty new... it must have been hiding in the bottom of the drawer instead of getting used and thrown in the washer every week or two.

You can see, however, that while these are the same shades of blue and white that there is a variety of ways to put granny squares together.  I thought today, I'd talk just a little about two of those methods and then show you how I finish them off into a potholder.

First, is using multiple colors of yarn.  In this picture, you can see that I changed my yarn for each row.  It's relatively simple to do and provides pattern and contrast. which is very pretty.  The downside is that you have all those tails to tuck and hide in your work.  This is for a potholder, so there are 7 rounds for a total of 14 tails - one to begin and another to end each round.  Tail tucking is my most hated part of any crochet project!  I look for ways to avoid it.

You can also use contrasting colors divided on the diagonal by carrying the yarn you aren't crocheting on the back.  I didn't have enough left of either of these yarns to finish a potholder... but you get the idea.  Admittedly, it's a little awkward to carry that extra strand of yarn until you've done it for a few rounds but I really like this method because it is so very different and you don't have all those darned tails.

Obviously, by itself a granny square is too light and open to provide any protection to your hands from a hot dish so the potholder needs a backing layer.

 To do this, I chain 32, then use half double crochets (usually abbreviated hdc in commercial patterns) to make a solid square.  I like the hdc because it provides bulk and substantialness while working up faster and softer than single crochets (sc).  At the end, I don't cut my thread - saves me a tail to tuck!  I just begin sc around the edge to affix the solid backing and granny square together.  Then I finish the potholder off with a loop so it could be hung on the wall or a magnetic hook on the side of the stove.

To make the loop, I chain 10 in the corner where my last sc meets my first sc from putting the two pieces together and slip stitch to connect it.  Then ch 1 and sc around the loop to fill it in.  I just counted a couple of them and it's 18 sc in the loop.

Simple.  Pretty.  Useful.  And it makes me happy to feel this little connection to my family history.  You see my maternal ancestors didn't pass on a lot of great stories... or traditions.  Some of them didn't want to be found or known and went to some effort to hide their identities.  Most of my memories and sense of connectedness to them is in the things they left behind.  I love having Grandpa's gold rimmed shot glasses and Grandma's Blue Willow dishes and the pillowcases (great) Grandma Chris made out of old cloth flour sacks around me.