Last year my dad found a blanket in his spare room that had been crocheted by my late Little Nana. For me it was like finding treasure; a complete piece of work she'd done and here it was unexpectedly in my hands.
The blanket is a giant granny square made out of all the odds and ends of yarn left over from Nana's other projects and it got me thinking about my extensive yarn stash and all the wasted odd balls and leftovers sitting in boxes in the spare room. I'd been meaning to learn how to crochet granny squares for awhile as I love the shape of them, their simplicity and their potential colour combinations and I was inspired to get out all the little bits of stash and have a go. However, on entering the yarn shop to get a ball of yarn for another project I was working on I saw a rainbow of acrylic yarns and knew I needed a rainbow blanket in my life - which led to this:
But that wasn't enough! Oh no, the granny square bug has bitten me good and proper but this time my Nana's blanket quite clearly said to me "Young lady, don't you dare waste money on new yarn when you've got a perfectly good box full you could use up!". I had no choice and set about gathering it all up. The result so far is this:
This led to the desturbing discovery that I couldn't bear to stop making squares. So I picked up my hook again and used the leftovers to make this rainbow baby blanket for a friend.
But that wasn't enough! Oh no, the granny square bug has bitten me good and proper but this time my Nana's blanket quite clearly said to me "Young lady, don't you dare waste money on new yarn when you've got a perfectly good box full you could use up!". I had no choice and set about gathering it all up. The result so far is this:
104 out squares done so far with no sign of slowing up. The blanket I have in mind will be 12 x 12 squares, which is a total of 144, then I'll be joining them with crochet and adding a wide border around the edge to make a blanket big enough for two. I've actually started to dream about these little three round squares and am getting a thrill out of combining so many contrasting, clashing colours that wouldn't make it into a planned project, but here they somehow just work.
So here goes: I'm addicted to granny squares and I'm proud!
P.S. - I made a batch of Fat Rascals and I was going to take a photo of the beauties and post the recipe today but they got eaten as soon as they were cool enough to pick up. Better luck next time, I'll be posting the recipe soon. (Oh goodie, that means I get to make another batch!)