Crocheted Granny Square Afghan for our Queen Bed

Original post by Sarah @ Renewed Upon a Dream, please visit her website for more great ideas!”

It’s Friday, but I’m off work today!  This is the first “vacation” day I’ve had in 2013.  And it’s not really a vacation day because I’m pretty much just making up time off from all the extra hours I worked earlier this week going to Chicago for some training.  But it’s GLORIOUS!  Nothing to do today except get some grocery shopping done.   How stinkin’ lovely!  Wish I could have Fridays off every week

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a pretty big project.  Now, it’s finally ready to show you!  Eeeeee!  I’m so excited about this one!  Check out our new granny square afghan!

This is the first time I’ve completed a really big blanket.  It’s also the first granny square project I’ve done ever!  Sewing them together did take some time, but I had a system to it that made it not too bad.  I created all of the squares first, then sewed large squares together in sets.  Instead of going through all of my little squares & sewing in the ends all at once, I sewed them in individually as I chose them to sew into the large squares.  Does that make sense?  So kind of a sew as you go kind of thing so that I wasn’t sitting around for days just sewing in loose ends.

I used the pattern & colors directly from the Garden Patch pattern on Lion Brand’s site here.  It was just so pretty I had to keep it as it was.  It adds so much color to our previously pretty dull bedroom.  Plus, it’s great for pulling over us in the middle of the night when it gets chilly with the windows open & the ceiling fan on.

There are many different ways to sew squares together, but I did mine by taking the two squares I was working on and placing them together, right-side facing each other.  Then I whip stitched the edge that I was sewing together through the back loops only (with one of the green yarns).  When done, fold it open & you can’t even see the stitching, & it’s pretty quick to get it all together.

I did end up with a good amount of yarn leftover.  I’m gonna run over to Ikea today too in order to pick up some fluffy pillow inserts & make a couple of pillow covers with the leftover yarn for the living room & bedroom.  Pretty excited about those too!

Have a good weekend friends!