"Granny" Squares - advice for beginners

 

"Granny" Squares are immediately what you'll probably think of when anyone mentions "Crochet" to you. Chances are that you'll have at least one female member of your family in an older generation that used to cover every single surface in these - and with good reason, they look really cool and they're also a great way to use up loads of old bits of yarn ends left over from other projects. 

I'd been trying to learn how to do these for a while but got really frustrated that most tutorials taught you how to make the 'middle bit' and maybe told you how to vaguely continue into a bit of the second row, but none went much further than that. 

I used a tutorial from "The Spruce Crafts" which was one of the better ones, but I thought I'd also go through some of the stitches and other bits you need to know once you get past that all important first square. 

Sometimes the tutorials - though great - just don't give enough information to a beginner, but as Granny Squares have a very distinctive and repeated pattern (which you can keep on going, and going, and going with until you get something like I made - a cushion cover - or something even bigger than that!) I thought I'd try and explain things a little clearer. First a few points worth noting: 

• Yarn size / thickness isn't that important, though really thin yarn is pretty rubbish for granny squares (most of the time I tend to use StyleCraft 100% acrylic in slightly thicker weights). For this cushion cover I used everything but the kitchen sink, so a real mix of cotton, acrylic and even some really scratty old yarn I'd had kicking around for ages and just wanted to get rid of. 
• Hook size is also not important though obviously it'll make things easier if you use a hook that's suitable for the yarn (I tend to use the same 5mm hook for just about everything anyway, including this). 
• There are two main component 'stitches' to a Granny square - the chain stitch (which you can all do by now, right?) and the Double Crochet (sometimes called the Treble Crochet in UK terms but I use US stitch terms, they're just easier and the majority of the patterns out there seem to use them too). Each little 'shell' you see in a Granny Square (those neat little bunches of knots binding the whole thing together) are clusters of 3 double crochet stitches but you'll find other Granny Square patterns that use all manner of different stitches - this is just the easiest. 

Starting your work

I'm assuming some basic knowledge of how to get started here so you know how to do a slipknot and chain three, right? Do that first - so to kick off our pattern: 

CH3

(Don't worry about tying this all together, I'll put the full square instructions in long form later on)

Now, in the first stitch above your slip knot (or the 2nd chain hole from the chain on your hook), you're going to work 2 double crochet stitches into the same hole - that first chain stitch. 

2DC in same stitch, 2nd chain hole from hook

Now you'll need to chain 2 before the next cluster of DCs

CH2

NOTE the different number of chains here, and in general you will switch between chaining 2 (between clusters of DCs) or chaining 3 (when starting a new row or round). 

Next, you want 3 DC stitches in the same hole you did your original DCs into. You're basically DCing into one stitch to make that nice puffy round hole in the centre of your granny square.

3DC in original chain hole

Now you've completed 2 of your 4 corners. Most instructions will wibble off into some vague hand-wavy "Do that two more times" but let's do it properly. 

CH2

3DC in original chain hole

CH2

3DC in original chain hole

..and by now you will have something that should resemble a mini potato waffle (or a small yarn square!)

Last steps...

CH2

(for some reason, a LOT of instructions miss out that final CH2 but it's important to join things up properly)

...then slip-stitch to the top of the very first DC stitch on your square (literally right opposite where you are with your hook / stitch). Congratulations, you have completed the foundation square of your Granny Square! Adorable, isn't it?

So that's Round 1, and I promised I wasn't going to leave you hanging for Round 2 and 3 so let's get straight on with those.

You should have a square with a loop in one corner (hopefully still on your Crochet Hook unlike mine) so you can immediately Chain 3 to start off your 2nd round. 

CH3

Now you'll need to put 3 DCs in the hole immediately below your chain - the corner hole (there should be four corner holes in total, which is where we're going to be putting our 2nd round stitches. 

3DC in hole below 2nd round foundation chain (the chain you just did!)

Now you're going to Chain 2 - these are the 'bridging chains' between all your sets of DCs in the 2nd round but the 2nd round is predominantly made up of "Cornering" which I'll describe in the next step. 

CH2

Now it's time to corner! This is another instruction that most Granny Square tutorials skip over without going into much detail so let's take it slowly. First, you will need to DC 3 stitches into the next corner on if you are working anti-clockwise round your square. 

3DC in next corner hole

Next, chain 2 (this is to give us another corner hole for round 3)

CH2

THEN 3DC again in the same hole you just worked in, if you picture this in your mind you're doing your first set of DC to begin turning the corner, the 2 Chain stitches to make a tiny bridge between the entrance and the exit to your corner, then another DC to finish and exit the corner

3DC in same corner hole. 

Congratulations! You've just literally turned a corner in your Crochet skills! So 2 corners down (the starting corner the 2nd corner) and 2 more to go before we're back to where we started off. 

CH2

Yep once again we need to make a little "bridge" between one corner and the next, working anti-clockwise round our square. then immediately

3DC in next corner hole

Yep, the next immediate hole in a corner anti-clockwise round your square. Think of it as hopping from corner to corner so we're on corner 3 now. Corner 1 is where we began our 2nd row, corner 2 is the corner you've just expertly polished off, and corner 3 is the penultimate corner. 

CH2

Our next bridge to the next set of 3DCs

3DC to exit this corner

3 corners down, time to build a bridge to the final corner

3DC in next corner hole

CH2

3DC to exit the fourth corner

CH2 

...and we've done a complete circuit of your tiny granny square, leading us back to the very first corner. 

This time, slip stitch to the first DC you made in Round 2 and you should end up with something like this:

In the third round we're going to do more cornering, but we're also going to do some pothole-jumping (exciting stuff eh?) but first we will begin our third round exactly how we began our 2nd round...so chain 3

CH3

then 3DC into the hole directly below your chain. 

3DC

This time, on our counter-clockwise Granny Square racecourse there's a whacking great big hole between us and the 2nd corner, so what are we going to do? Well first thing we need to do is build another CH2 bridge to that hole...

CH2

Now what? Well we need to fill that pothole - in Granny Square terms, there are two types of holes as you work around your work. CORNER holes (which we're already expert at dealing with) and EDGE holes (which are what we're going to tackle next). 

We need to put three double crochet stitches into that edge hole so...

3DC

...and that's it! We've plugged our side hole with 3DCs and can move on. Build a 2 chain bridge to the next corner 

CH2

and you already know the cornering technique so...

3DC

CH2

3DC

CH2

...and we're on the 2nd side ready to do another pothole (side hole) jump. 

3DC

...into that side hole then 

CH2

and it's cornering time again

3DC

CH2

3DC

CH2

and pothole-leaping time again

3DC

then

CH2

then 

3DC

CH2

3DC

CH2

then

3DC

...and we're approaching our starting corner for Round 3. Chain 2

CH2

...then slip-stitch into the beginning corner of Round 3 to close off that round. 

Once you've done 3 rounds of a granny square, you essentially just carry on repeating the instructions for round 3, 'cornering' every time you meet a corner and 'hole jumping' every time you meet a side hole. So let's have a look at a Granny Square after  5 rounds...

This one even features a nice colour change! Basically this can be done at the point where you begin a round and chain that initial 3 chain. Just pull through a new colour as a loop, chain 3 with that, and carry on the round as you normally would. Tie off the two colours (cut the original yarn to a decent length before tying off) and you're ready to carry on in your new colour (and can weave the ends in later on). Or if you're like me and just want to use up old scraps, reef knot the two ends together and carry on, tucking in the loose knot ends later on. 

Phew! I hope this long post helps explain things a bit better if you've struggled with Granny Square tutorials in the past. Happy to answer any questions through my Ravelry account (hit me up there as peejmaybe) or as a comment to the blog. 

Once you've mastered 3 rounds of Granny Square Bashing, you can make these things as big as you want, or if you want the real authentic Granny Square experience, you can stop after 3 or 5 rounds and sew lots of these together to make a cover or quilt. 

Hope you found it useful!!