What to Make with Granny Squares (besides blankets)

Do you guys like granny squares? I love granny squares, which is going to become very evident as you guys watch this live event. Um, I have collected some of the granny square things that I've been working on mostly stuff for the Creative Crochet Corner website, but also for Craftsy, and we're gonna be talking about a lot of these projects, and I'm gonna be giving you guys some ideas on things to do other than making granny square blankets. Not that there's anything wrong with granny square blankets. I love them.

Uh, but you know, you might want some other. Other projects to make with those granny squares. I, I oftentimes hear people say things like, well, I love making granny squares, but I don't know what I'm gonna do with all these granny squares. Um, so, here we go, here we are. So, um, yeah, so if you guys enjoy making granny square projects, let me know in the comments.

Tell me what types of things you like to do with granny squares, um, or tell me what types of things you are interested in learning about with granny squares, um, or if you have any other granny square advice or anything you just wanna add in there or you just want to say hi, um, definitely put that in the chat. I'd love to hear from you guys during this live event. All right, so we're gonna start, um, oh, and by the way, I have, there is a download that goes along with this. It is called We Love Our Grannies, and then there's 4 easy granny square projects included in that. So we'll be talking a little bit about what's included in there as we're working through this pile of stuff, um, but there are a ton of links that are in the description for you guys, so you can follow along and you can go check those things out later, um, if you're interested in any one of these specific things, because almost everything here.

There's a couple of things that are not free tutorials, but almost everything here is like a free tutorial and a free pattern. So there's a couple of exceptions, and I'll try to call those out as we go through stuff. All righty. So the first thing I want to talk about is this. I made this project not too long ago.

This is a crochet journal. Let me just move that out of the way here so you guys can see. This is a crochet journal. It's just got granny squares on the front and back covers. And I figured out a way to make that cover, you know, something that is stiff enough but still flexible, and, you know, if you throw it in a bag, it's not going to be like a piece of cardboard that gets creased or something.

And I use some stiff felt and we crochet right into that, and I, I basically bound myself a little book. These are just a notebook insert or like a 3-ring planner, like one of those small planners in the free download the tutorial for this, I do have a link for where I got this, um. But you can see we've just, we're just using 4 granny squares, one here, one here, one there, and one there. And then we sew them together, make a little bit of, um, single crochet back and forth to connect those, and then we insert those pages and stitch right through where those little holes are in the. Notebook and there you have it, a bound book.

So this would be a really fun way to, you know, keep a little journal of your crafting experience, or you can make it as a gift for somebody else who likes to journal, um, or some kind of a scrapbook. You could bind it with crochet and put it together that way. Uh, yeah, but it's just kind of an unusual, unusual way of using granny squares. So we have this. This is called the Crochet Journal.

And the next thing I'm going to talk about is this. So of course, we've got, we're kind of going through like the home decor section first. This is the garden, the, let's see, flower garden throw pillow is what I call this, and there is a live tutorial, well, there's a live tutorial and a free pattern for the last one as well, the Crochet Journal. This one also has a live tutorial, um, and a free pattern. If you're looking for the patterns, by the way, I put a link, I put all those links in there for the tutorials, and if you click on the tutorial, there's a link on the page where the tutorial is for the free pattern download in there.

So if you're looking just for the patterns, you don't want to watch the tutorial, you can still hop on over to the tutorial page and then get the download link from there. But this, um, this, you can see there are 9 different granny squares here. These are kind of funky granny squares, right? They're not like the, the stereotypical granny square, like, like this granny square. The most, um, granny square of them all is what I think of this is like, to me, this is like baseline granny square.

This is a granny square with a little bit of a floral, uh, you know, motif in the center of the granny square, but it's just 9 squares, and then the back has two rectangles of just single crochet work back and forth, and then they're overlapped, and then you can stuff a pillow inside. Um, so you know, if you have a bunch of granny squares, you don't know what to do with them, you could figure out how many granny squares you could put across to land with either like 12 inches, 14 inches, 16, or 18. I think it goes up like 20, 22, but these are the sort of standard throw pillow sizes that you can already buy, so you don't have to make your own pillow and stuff it with the fiber fill, because I find that purchasing the pillows for inserts is much cheaper to do. If you don't actually make the pillow yourself, if you're just buying the insert, because the stuffing costs pretty much as much as the pillow does. So not really saving money there.

But one thing I wanted to point out on this pillow and also on our next pillow that I'm going to be talking about in a second here is especially on this one, because you can see this granny square has all these little gaps and spaces between the stitches. So if you look inside here, I'll just open this up. We have a little gray pillow covering that you can purchase to go over your white pillow form, and that way it doesn't look, it looks like it kind of blends in more with the rest of the pillow. So I just wanted to point that out. It makes it a really easy way to make it look a little bit more refined, a little bit more polished if you find something that's similar to that color.

Um, and on the next pillow here, this pillow. Um, so this pillow also has a gray pillow, but I just purchased, the pillow actually comes in different colors, so you don't actually buy another pillowcase to put underneath your crochet. Uh, pillow, if that makes sense. It is actually just the way that the pillow comes, and I did put a link for this because I found this. I only found this semi-recently, and I thought, oh, what a great thing to be able to just order the pillow in the color you want it to be, and that way if you have little holes between your stitches, like in this particular granny square, it has lots of holes here, you can just see right through.

Um, it just makes it look a little bit more, I feel like it just looks a little more polished. To have that, you know, a color that kind of blends in with it, as opposed to just a white pillow form. So this pillow, maybe some of you guys recognize this pillow. This pillow is actually made from blocks that were from the gallery throw crochet along. So, um, over a year ago, I can't remember exactly when this was, I designed a blanket.

I think that was, I haven't designed that many blankets in my life because I'm a person who likes to just make something, learn about it, try a new technique, and then move on to the next thing. Um, so making blankets for me is a much more, you know, the amount of time that it takes, it kind of makes me hesitate to design blankets sometimes. But when I designed this, I designed it for people like me in mind, and I made multiple different squares that are different stitch patterns, but they all make squares. They all kind of go together. And then you rotate through the colors for all the squares, and that way, um, you don't get bored because you're never making—there are no squares that are identical in that blanket.

There might be some, like, you know, multiple squares that are like the stitch pattern, but then they're in other colors. So it was something that just kept my interest for longer. Um, and so when I did that tutorial or that series of tutorials, I ended up with a bunch of extra squares that were almost completed because, um, I don't know if you guys have thought about this before, but when you're watching my live tutorials, I have to have my project in, um, different states of completion and a bunch of them. So like if I'm working on a hat, I'll have a hat that's just partially done and then one that's done up to the next, you know, thing I want to show you and then another one that's almost done so they can show you like how to close the top or whatever. But so sometimes I will take those things apart and reuse the yarn, or sometimes I like to finish those things, or a lot of times I like to turn them into something else because it keeps my interest, and it's kind of a fun way to use stuff up.

So I finished off those mostly finished squares and then I just put them together into a pillow. And so, you know, there's only 4 squares here. Um, the pillow, I think, is a 16-inch pillow. Each square was just a little bit smaller than 8 inches, I believe, um, with the border, so that way it's about the right size. Um, so if you're going to be making up a granny square pillow, you can make those, you know, you can make one giant granny square until it is the size of half your pillow, and then make another one for the back and just stitch them together.

That would be super cute. You can make multiple little granny squares like on the pillow I showed you uh briefly or just before this, um, and then sew them together and then, you know, you can do that for the front and the back. There's lots of different options, but one of the things, and this is just a theme that I'm gonna come back to a bunch of times. One of the things I really, really love about granny squares is it's kind of like, um, building blocks for making all sorts of things. Like you learn how to make the granny square.

There's different types of granny squares you can make. Um, and then you can interchange them within projects as long as they end up being the same size. You can swap one out for another. You can also use them. I like to think of them as being kind of like Legos.

You have a bunch of these little squares, and you can just sort of figure out how to put them together to make different things. OK, so, and we'll, we'll get a little bit more into that as we kind of work our way through things, but this is a very simple project. You just, you know, for this, for this project, I use, you know, you could follow if you wanted to make exactly this, you could follow the tutorials for those different squares in the blanket, you know, this is a great way to kind of be able to learn all those different squares, but only have to make one or two of those squares, you know, and then you have a finished thing at the end instead of making the whole big blanket. All right, so the next thing I want to talk about, we're still talking about home decor Here. A few weeks or months ago, I did a live tutorial on making yarn from t-shirts, like old t-shirts from the thrift store or things that, you know, have served their purpose in your home and you just want to cut them up and make yarn out of them.

So, I did a tutorial on that a ways back, and then I taught people how to use that yarn to make a really nice big, sturdy basket and then I ended up with some leftover t-shirt yarn and I thought, well, I don't really have enough of any one color to make something that I really wanted to make. But then I was like, oh, granny squares. I love making granny squares. So I just made. Let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 granny squares because there's one on the bottom here.

There's a granny square on the bottom, and I just crocheted this up at a pretty tight gauge. There's no, there's nothing in here giving it structure. It's just the t-shirt yarn. It's just that it's been crocheted. You know, it's thick yarn.

It's pretty sturdy, and when you crochet it up at a fairly tight gauge, then it, you know, has enough stability in it to become a basket. You don't need to add any kind of plastic structure or anything to it. Um, and then you can use that to keep your yarn in or whatever it is, you know, to help kind of declutter your space. You can make one of these. Um, but one thing I do want to point out, of course, is that there are holes between your stitches, like in almost all granny squares, are like that.

Um, so you wouldn't be able to keep something that's really small or it might fall out the bottom holes. OK, so this would be good for like balls of yarn, but maybe not for crochet hooks as well, because you might, your crochet hook might sneak out somewhere. All right, so the next thing I want to show you guys, this is called the Bonita Project bag. So this is something that was inspired by my aunt, Bonnie. Um, she, when I was little, she made me this really awesome granny square vest and so, and in my mind, and she's a prolific crocheter, she's always making all kinds of cool things.

And so, um, to me when I think about granny squares, a lot of times I connect that with Bonnie because of that granny square vest and I just know that she really loves crochet. I hope that she watches this at some point. Hi Bonnie, Bonnie, if you're there, hello, but I named this project after her. This project is super fun to make with just scraps of yarn, um, that's worsted weight yarn, and I had that in mind when I designed it. Um, yeah, and then it features, let's see, we'll just pull out the next project and we'll talk about that in a minute.

It features a lining, and I do teach you in the tutorial, um, how to make the lining, how to put it in, um, and then, you know, this little handy zipper across the top, and that lining, if you make it out of this is denim, but if you make it out of denim or canvas or something that's fairly sturdy, then it really gives that bag some extra structure, um, and it makes it a very useful bag. This is a great size for, like, if you, I was, I, for me, I was thinking this would be a great size for, like, one large skein of yarn and a hook to bring somewhere, you know, like if I wanted to make a hat or a pair of mittens or something like that, it's like the perfect size for that. But I have gifted these to lots of people, and people use them for, you know, like a toiletries bag or all kinds of other, um, all kinds of other uses, but this is a really fun one. It's been really popular. Um, the next thing, oh, it looks like we've got some, some comments here.

Oh, Barbara's here. Hello, Barbara. Oh, and Laurie says my favorite project is baby blankets. Granny squares are perfect for them because I can mix soft pastels and add a little texture without it being too bulky. Yes, absolutely.

I love granny square blankets, and, and for me baby blankets, for some reason, that just seems so much more doable for me. I mean, I I don't know. I know there are lots of people out there who love making blankets, and that's like their main thing, and I just am kind of in awe of always kind of undertaking these giant projects, but baby blankets to me are really great way to, um, you know, kind of scale those projects down just a little bit, and they get a lot of use and they're so appreciated and just as somebody who. Um, when I was given handmade things, when I was pregnant, I was like just so happy to have them and you know, because you're thinking about, Oh, this person was thinking about my children, uh, you know, while they were making this, and it's just kind of an extra special gift. That is a really nice thing to do.

And Jasmine says granny square tote bags are my go to. I always have one in progress with my scrap yarn. I've made at least six so far. Wow, that's a lot. Awesome.

I also love making granny square taupe bags, and you will see a couple of them in a little bit here. Um, and Remi Yarn says nice. Awesome. I'm glad you're here. Olivia says, I just finished my first granny square bucket hat and now I'm hooked.

I am already planning my next one in Halloween colors. Cool. Oh yeah, bucket hats. I don't think I've made a granny square bucket hat yet. That's gonna have to go on my list.

Um, and Kara, or Kara, I'm, I'm sorry if I said your name wrong. I accidentally came in and saw some interesting crochet project bag. Oops. All right, excellent. Okay, so here's another crochet.

Well, this isn't really a project bag unless you're making like socks or something, fingerless mittens really small. But this is more like a fanny pack or a crossbody bag. Um, this was a live tutorial on the Creative Crochet Corner website and it is free, and, um, yeah, so it comes with a tutorial and a free pattern as well. For this one, I had made this, um, in response to somebody else who had an idea. They wanted to make a crossbody bag, and they wanted it to be like a flower, a flower on the front of it.

So I designed this little square here. Um, this was sort of, um, uh, let's see, so this, this square I designed, but it really came, you can see that there's like, a similarity between this square and this square. I just sort of like took it up another notch and changed it around a little bit and added some, you know, different rounds, but this square, this came from an old vintage book which I absolutely love. That's where the square came from and after I learned how to make that, I just sort of applied that to making a slightly larger square. But I made this in response to somebody asking me, I love it when you guys come up with suggestions of projects for me to make in the future.

Um, it's really nice to have inspiration come from you guys because, uh, sometimes I just kind of get stuck in a rut and just think about the things I want to make, but then somebody comes along like earlier today and they were asking for like a ski mask or a balaclava, and I've never made one of those before. Well, I actually have designed one of those before. It was like a monster theme with crazy big bug eyes, but I have never made one that's like that wasn't sort of costumey looking, so I'm excited to work on that, but I love it when you guys have suggestions. OK, so this little fanny pack, it has a lining. There's just a zipper in the front of it.

So if you're wearing it close on, you don't have to unzip it along the top, but you can unzip it along kind of like the outside of the bag as you're wearing it. And then I just stitched a little fabric lining in there, and this is something that's not as tricky as it seems, and it is part of the live tutorial, so you can see how I do that. And then I purchased the strap. I ended up having to shorten it a bit, and I do talk about that. That is not hard to do.

You don't have to have a sewing machine in order to do that. You don't have to have a sewing machine in order to do the lining. You can hand stitch that if you like, um. But I did buy a little bit of hardware just to make this piece a little bit more sturdy and functional, and something that could be adjustable, so you could wear it across your body here, or you could wear it around your hips, or you can just sling it over one shoulder, however you wanna use this bag. And it's so fun to pick out the colors for things like this.

That's another thing that I just really, really love about granny squares is gathering the colors and trying to figure out how they look together. Um. Yeah, OK, looks like we've got a couple more comments. I always think that baby blankets shouldn't have holes for fingers and toes to get caught, and therefore a granny's good for a baby. You know, I think that just depends on the person.

I had my, um, my mother-in-law crochet blankets for my kids when they were babies, and they could get their fingers and toes in them. And they could get their fingers and toes in them. And I would normally just use those because I was kind of— I was a very nervous mom, let's just say that. Mom, let's just say that. So I normally just pulled out those when I was going to be around them the whole time, not—I would not, you know, and I didn't ever give them a blanket in the crib or anything like that, but, um.

But yeah, I, I feel like if, if, um. You know, it's kind of up to the person, up to the mom, of course, but I do know, you know, my kids had those blankets and they could get their little fingers and toes in them, um, but they, they, I don't know, they seem to be OK. They still have all their fingers and toes, but you know, use with caution, I guess, like many things that we hand-make for babies, you know, because they have not gone through the same kind of testing. As you know, something you would purchase at a store, every time you give something that's handmade to a baby, you just have to kind of be aware of those types of things, or things maybe unraveling or other things, but that stuff can happen and purchase things too, so, OK. Oh, Kara, OK.

Thank you for putting the little car emoji in there. Now I get it. Thank you. OK. Um, uh, Colleen said, I, I made a granny square bikini and a skirt for my one-year-old granddaughter's.

Super cute. Oh, that's adorable. And Kara says I am crocheting a flower plant bouquet, flower plant bouquet in the crochet basket. Oh, cool. That sounds pretty awesome.

You guys are very creative. OK, so the next thing I want to talk about, this is called the Sharon shoulder bag, and this is part of the download that we're featuring today, the, the We Love Our Grannies, the 4 granny square projects. You'll have to excuse the bag's condition a little. I have been using this bag pretty much every day since I designed it. I think it's been almost 3 years now.

This is one of the first things that I designed, I feel like for, for, um. The Creative Crochet Corner website, um, and so it's gotten a ton of use. This is just made out of worsted weight acrylic that I had gifted to me, so I just threw it together. I just kind of picked out some of the colors, um from the bag of yarn that was given to me and put this together. But, um, yeah, it just uses, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 granny squares, because you can see the ones that are down here are folded in half.

Okay, so we've got 4 on this side plus those two halves and 4 on this side plus, you know, the other half of those. And, and so this also features a lining on the inside here. And I do show you in step-by-step photos how like a photo tutorial in the download today. How to create that. If this is something that people are interested in me doing a live tutorial for, let me know if you are interested in making this bag, um, that may pop up in the future.

Um, but this is just a little piece of quilter's cotton that I used for the lining. And of course a zipper for the top, and for the strap, I, I oftentimes I find, you know, with a crochet strap, crochet tends to stretch out when you are making something, you know, hang from it that's pretty heavy. So I knew that I was, I know myself and I'm like I'm just gonna be stuffing that purse until it's completely full. I know that's gonna happen. Um, so I knew that it could get a little bit heavy depending on what I put in there.

So I was looking for a way to make a strap that was both comfortable and kind of squishy on my shoulder, but also something that's not going to stretch out. So I ended up doing this braided strap and then it kind of comes through this little circle on the side and then the end of it just, I thought, you know, at first I was like, well, how am I going to get rid of the ends after I braided? I have to try and, and I was thinking I can make something that goes around it and I could sew it over that and then I thought, oh, I kind of like how that looks. It's like a little tassel on the end, sort of. So you just have those little tassels kind of hanging down.

I thought it just made it look really cute and I liked it, um, and the, the strap you can see here, it's very, very strong because this is all acrylic yarn and many strands of them that are braided together. Um, I think each color has like If I had to guess, I would say like maybe six strands in each color or something close to that. Um, it's very, very sturdy, very strong. I'm, like I said, I've been using this like every day for three years or so, so it is looking a little bit worn. It's, you know, I should probably clean it up a little bit, but um, it still hasn't fallen apart.

It's still very sturdy. So this is the shawl and shoulder bag and that's part of that download. Another thing that's in the download is just a square pouch. So you just take two granny squares, you can crochet them together, and then you insert a little fabric lining. And so I wanted to show you another little variation of that kind of thing.

So this one has actually four granny squares. So the pouch with the instructions that's included in that download. is basically a square like this. It would be like this little section, it would look like this, except it's a couple more rounds bigger than that. But I thought, well, this would be a useful thing for crochet hooks or a pencil bag, you know, for back to school time, um, or just, you know, lots of different.

I have like a million things I could think of to put in here. Um, so I just wanted to show you guys that, you know, again those granny squares you can use them as building blocks and just sort of try to figure out what size of something that you want. Maybe you want a bag that's much larger. You could add more granny squares onto it. Maybe you need a bag for something that's very long and narrow and it's hard to find a bag that fits whatever that thing is, like a tripod or something like that, um.

Then you can just make a granny square and then figure out how many would need to fit across for something, sew them together, make the same thing for the back, and then insert your zipper, and this also has a lining stitch into it, just a little fabric lining in there. And there, you know, there is a tutorial in the download. There's a picture tutorial on how to add that in there with directions and everything. Um, so yeah, so this is just another, another one of those projects from those, from the four projects that we gathered up today that's in the way we love our granny squares. Download.

Um, and then, oh, we've got a good morning from Crown of Silvers. Good morning. Um, so speaking of bags, I had made this really cute tote bag. This was a Valentine's Day project, um, and this one was, um, made with a super chunky yarn or super bulky yarn. It's an acrylic, and, uh, the thing that's interesting about this bag, well, a couple of things, is again, I knew that this could get heavy.

I wanted to use this as a library book bag. So I needed the strap to be really strong. So I made this strap that is basically like, it's a wider rectangle, and I rolled it up tightly, and then I stitched it into this sort of long. Like, you know, sausage shape or this this rounded kind of cord and stitched it closed and I used the yarn tails for each color for stitching it closed at at each color change there and then the the whiter yarn I could carry throughout and then just kind of hop underneath that color and stitch that close and just doing that, having that sort of rolled up. Construction style, it does stretch a little.

You can see here, I'll grab onto it here and I'll stretch it. You can see it stretches a little, but it is not nearly as stretchy as if this would be just like a flat strap that would just keep on stretching out with those library books in it. So this is very, you know, it's comfortable, um, it's kind of whimsical and cute with all those different colors going on there to match the little hearts that are on each side. Um, it's just sort of like a fun little bag. The other thing that makes this bag interesting.

And if you're interested in this, I definitely recommend checking out the tutorial, um, also the free pattern that goes along it, along with it, but I lined it in a t-shirt, like a used t-shirt that I had, um, and it had outlived its, it's, it's, uh, usefulness, and so I just sort of poked my crochet hook hook through the edge of the t-shirt and crocheted around the edge and then I incorporate that into the bag. So this bag does not require any sewing thread or sewing needles or any, you don't have to do any of that. It's all just crocheted. The sewing, I should say the only really the sewing part comes into sewing this um with your yarn needle and your yarn tails into the, into like a cord, but the lining itself does not require, um, does not require any sewing, you know, you don't have to have any sewing skills for this, for this lining. Um, and this was just sort of a new way to me of doing this.

I had never seen this before, and it was kind of, um, my answer to, I think a lot of people who love to crochet, they just don't really want to learn. Uh, not, you know, some people are excited to learn how to line their bag, but other people would rather just kind of crochet a thing that works, you know, and I knew that I needed to line this bag because it has these larger holes in it and that just didn't seem very useful to me and I knew that it would add some extra structure to it. It would keep it from stretching out, um, and so yeah, so that was my solution to that. So this is called the Sweetheart tote. So this was on Craftsy, and I believe you can also find it on the Creative Crochet Corner website.

Yeah, you can find it in the tutorial section on the Creative Crochet Corner website and there's also a free free tutorial and free pattern for that. And when I finished that bag, one of my kids saw it and said, Mom, can you please make that but like make it a sweater? Can I have that but as a sweater mom? And so I made this. So this is inspired, well, made out of actually pieces of my.

The other bag that I made for the live demonstration, I just sort of took it apart and made it into this, like, added a couple extra hearts, heart granny squares, and made it into this sweater here. Um, and here's the back of it. I can see. So, I will, I brought this in today because I wanted to show you again how super versatile granny squares are, because you could do this with any square, you know, any granny squares. You just have to, um, You know, if you want, if you're interested in making up your own sweater, you don't want to follow a pattern, you just want to figure it out, then you can make a granny square and figure out what the width of that is and then think about that as multiples, you know, um, like say for example, this was 6 inches here and you had 3 of them, you would know that it was 18 inches across, and then you could think, OK.

You know, if I did that on the front and did that on the back, It would be 36 inches. OK, that might work, or if it's too small, you could add one more round and see what that does. So then you have to multiply it, you know, again, measure that and figure out what the distance is around. Um, or what I really like to do is I like to just get a sweater that I know fits me, something I already have, that I like how the fit is, and lay that on the table and make a granny square and see how many granny squares I can fit into that sweater, and that way you have something to kind of play with. It's like a template for your sweater.

So you can just lay out your sweater, figure out how many granny squares fit within that sweater both this way and this way. And you can see, so here is the top line of that, the top layer of granny squares. So everything from here up, I added. So I added some extra rows here and in order to shape it you can see what's happening here when we go from the neckline down to where the sleeve's attached here. I wanted to have that kind of slope going on there.

So what I did when I worked back and forth in these turned rows to add that extra section here is I started with shorter stitches like single crochets, went to half double crochets, and then went to double crochets. Then I turned my work and then. I did double crochets, half double, single. So that way, as you're going back and forth and back and forth, you're adding lots of extra height here compared to at this part of the shoulder. So that way you can kind of shape it to make that nice slope.

Not that you have to have your sweater like that, but I find that it kind of, if you're doing a really bulky sweater, it lays really nicely if you have a little bit of a slope there, um, just depending on what the fabric is, you may not need to do that, but that gave me that extra shaping that I wanted there. And in the back, so I did that on this side, and then I did it on this side of the neck as well. And then on the back. I did the same thing where I started out, you know, on this shoulder on this side. I started out with single crochets, half doubles, doubles, and then going back down over here.

So I did that back and forth and back and forth. And you just want this distance to be the same as it is on the front, so that they match up. So, um, just if there are some DIY wires out there, just kind of curious about making this up. If you're interested in this, um, you know, you might be able to just kind of play around with stuff, use those granny squares as building blocks, lay them out on a sweater you already have, so. together, you can add that little bit at the top, and you can make a strip of ribbing to go around here.

So I made that separately and stretched it out and added it into here, and it has to be a little smaller than the opening so that way it has to stretch to fit in order for it to kind of lay flat. And then the sleeves, I just worked these in the round and I just basically made a very long tube and switched colors, you know, went through the cycle of all of the colors, and then added that little ribbing onto the bottom. And in order to figure out the width of the sleeve, I would put together the whole body first and then check, you know, where that's hitting on me, because this is, this is a very oversized, much wider, um, sweater than the person that I made it for. So, I wanted to see where that was gonna land on her arm, so I could figure out the arm length, figure out the circumference, and all that kind of stuff. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there, um, if you're interested in making up your own stuff, granny squares are a really great place to just sort of start with because it's like playing with Legos.

You can just kind of get some, place them onto another sweater or something else you want to make, and just sort of see what shapes you can come up with, how you can fill it in with that, and then you can kind of just crochet in what's missing, um with the sweater if that makes sense. So if this is something that you're interested in learning more about this style, um, let me know. I have recently finished, um, pretty recently finished, uh, shooting a class that's all about making this granny square over here. So we've got this granny square. Which is basically a giant granny square on the front and then a giant one on the back, and then the sleeves have granny squares that go around them like this.

And so in this class that I that this is like a little sneak peek for you guys, this will be coming out, I think, sometime this fall, um, and basically the whole class is how to make this all up and not have to follow a pattern. Um, you know, I do have like a PDF download that walks you through the whole process, but you don't have to get anyone else's gauge. You don't have to even care about gauge as long as you're making a fabric you like. You can use whatever yarn you want. Um, and it's basically how to make a sweater fit you or fit you the way you want it to and be able to make this, you know, kind of fun granny square top.

And one of the bonuses of this particular class is I teach you how to do this shaping so that the neck doesn't choke you because I see a lot of granny squares where it's one big one for the front, one big one on the back. Um, and those are really cute, but for me, when I wear that and then I have a collar up here, it's like resting against my neck and it feels, I just don't like how it feels. So I wanted to teach you that option for shaping the neck, and it's easier than you think. So stay tuned for that if you guys are interested in making that type of sweater. It's a fun one.

Um, all right, and so also speaking of sweaters, we talked about, you know, sweater with smaller granny squares being on the body and then granny squares being the whole thing. And then this is another sweater. This one is actually, um, something that I designed on my own. This is, it's called the Mimi sweater. And it just has granny squares on the sleeves instead of throughout the whole thing.

So I'll show you guys what this looks like. Whoops, goes this way. So it's just a, you know, a solid front and back, and then it has these colorful sleeves, um, that just kind of add a little bit of extra fun. So you know, you may feel like granny squares are a little overwhelming. Maybe it isn't exactly your style, but you know, you can still use granny squares, but then just put them only on sleeves, or you could put them just around the bottom edge of the sleeve, or you know, this would look completely different if these were all done in like versions of one color, like all of them were all of the colors in here, if they were all grays or all different versions of whites and off-whites, it would be really pretty.

And it would just have a completely different vibe. So that's something to keep in mind if you enjoy making granny squares, Um, but you've, and you kind of want to wear them, but you're a little afraid to wear too much color. Um, I'm not afraid to wear too much color, but I know that there are many people out there who would not wear something so bright. Uh, so that's just something to keep in mind. So, oh, and I want, I also want to talk about the top that I'm wearing.

I talked about this a little earlier at my previous live event today. This is called the Garland crochet top, and this has a bunch of granny squares that just go across the front here, across the yoke, and then across the back as well. It has really simple linen stitch from there down. This is a really great introduction to garment making and, you know, it's all made in one color. So that's, you know, something that's a little bit less busy looking, I guess.

Some people might describe some of my other granny square things as having just too much to look at, but so this is another version, another way of looking at it. But of course you could make this and have, you know, the different squares or the different rings of the squares be in different colors, and that would give it a whole different look. But this comes from a class. It's called Crochet the Garland Top, and I walk you through the whole process. It's very size inclusive.

There is, um, yeah, so if you're interested in making this little tee, it's very comfortable. It looks good on lots of different body types. All right, so now I want to get into the accessories. So one thing that, um, well, okay, so first of all, here we have some fingerless mitts. This project, as well as this hat here, these are called the Confection Mitts and the Confection Beanie, and they come from my class, uh, Granny Square Wearables.

So that is available on Craftsy and also on the Creative Crochet Corner website, and I walk you through all the steps of making these projects. So you can see what this looks like. It's just got a little thumb hole there, and they're very stretchy and snug, and they fit really well, and I do crochet these up at a fairly tight gauge so we don't have a lot of gaps between our stitches. However, uh, to me, because I live in Minnesota where it's very cold, Um, in the winter, I just felt like I wanted another option for people who really want to keep their heads warm, so I made the beanie. I didn't want it to just be like you know, a beanie that you wear if it's a little cold out.

I wanted to be able to actually wear this in the winter as well. So, what I did was I made a fleece lining, and again, this was another, um, another style of making a lining where you don't have to have any sewing experience, you don't even use a needle and thread. You can see here we, I used, um, yarn and a yarn needle to put this together and it's completely flat. We do like this, uh, I think it's called a baseball stitch, um, to to kind of abut those two pieces together and it really makes it nice and smooth, you know, you don't have a lumpy seam throughout the hat. And so I teach you how to create your own pattern for a hat out of fleece that will fit inside of your hat or any hat.

You can use this process for other hats as well. So, that's also part of the class, um, but you can see here, we are using 3 different sizes of granny squares to make it look all cute and patchworky. So we've got like the larger size here. This is the medium size over here with just 3 rounds, and then we have 2 rounds, little bitty square here. There's another one here.

This just happens to match that. Color that I used for the background or whip stitches or whatever. So it looks like it kind of blends in with other parts, but there really are 22 rounds here in that square as well. So this was, um, I just really love this project so much because it, it really allows, it's just so playful looking with all those little patch patchwork pieces put together and to me, one of the things that I really love about granny squares is I love that aesthetic. I love how it looks when you have a bunch of colors coming together and it looks like something that's decidedly handmade.

I mean, I, you know, granny squares have been like insanely popular the last few years and now you can, like, walk into Target or other stores and you can see. Sort of granny square looking things. At first they look like granny squares, but then if you look at them up close, you can see that they're made probably with a knitting machine or something because you can't actually replicate crochet on a crochet, there's no crochet machine. Um, so to me that just makes us even more precious and dear, being able to make something that's so decidedly crochet. It's just like the, I feel like the granny square sometimes is like the poster child for cool crochet stuff because it like takes the idea of using what you have and putting it together and making something that's definitely better than the sum of its parts, you know, getting all those colors to come together and just being something really, really beautiful and handmade and unique.

So, to me, that's what this whole, this, this whole class was about. This was the crochet wearables class. Um, and then along those same lines, I've got a couple more accessories to show you guys. So this one, this comes from, this is like a little granny square headband. And this comes from the download that's featured today.

So the, um, We Love Our Grannies download, and it just features, I think five, let's see, one two three four five, yeah, five little granny squares. Um, and you can use, in this particular headband, I used one ball of yarn that color changed throughout. So I, I used, um. And I think sometimes I would skip ahead to the next color if I wanted it to change a little faster. I would just pull off a couple of inches or whatever and start with the next round.

But, uh, if you watch the tutorial, there's a free tutorial for this, um, like a video tutorial, and also, uh, yeah, of course it comes in the free download from today. If you look at some of the other headbands that I show you, I'm using different scraps of yarn for those headbands as well, so you can see some other color combinations and other ways that I use the yarn to come up with the, you know, nice colors that kind of belong together, and so, the nice thing about this headband is that it has this uh, stretchy elastic that's covered in a little band of crochet. So that goes at the back of your neck and it really holds it in place, keeps it there, um, instead of it just sort of stretching out and slipping and falling off. Which would be a bummer. So this is a type of elastic that is very easy to stretch.

You want to make sure you don't get a stiff elastic for this if you're going to make this project. It needs to be something that you can very easily stretch so that way it's not relying on this to stretch out, that this will stretch really easily and keep it nice and snug to your head. So this is very simple, just a bunch of gray squares and like a little tube of fabric with some elastic on the inside. and there is, like I said, a free tutorial for that. And I wanted to bring these in here, and these are technically, I would call these a linen stitch square and not a granny square, but sometimes I refer to things as being granny squares that aren't actually granny squares, like, you know, like these, I would say they're granny squares, but they're not like, you know, the, the stereotypical quintessential granny square that everybody recognizes.

Um, but this is another version of that, the linen stitch square. um, this, this has a live or this is a free live tutorial that you can watch the replay of and also free pattern to go along with it that, um, this project, these are called the Homestead myths. um, and in my live tutorial, I think my project and actually in the photos, my project is on this sort of, I think it's the same colors here, but I use this sort of off, sort of tannish taupe grayish color as the background, so you might, um. not recognize these because these I did later with uh some leftover purple yarn that I had, um but they're nice and snug and stretchy and they're very warm because this linen linen square doesn't have big gaps between the stitches. Also, the cool thing about these linen squares is that it's sort of like a mini granny square, so you can change colors much quicker because you're using single crochet.

And chain ones instead of those groups of three double crochets that we normally use in our our granny squares, um, so you can run through more colors quickly and if you have lots of little scraps, this is a really great project for using that up. So I can't remember if I said this already, but they're called the Homestead myths. Um, or Homestead fingerless myths. but if you just really like making the, the typical, um, granny squares, you can certainly substitute these squares for the the general granny squares like the granny squares that are in this. You can definitely substitute as long as you can get your square to be the same sizes as these squares are listed in the in the pattern.

You can definitely swap them out so that, you know, that is the great thing about granny squares. Is you can swap out one granny square for another as long as you get it to be the same size, you can kind of interchange things in different patterns. Um, yeah, and they're just really easy to kind of customize and play with, and yeah, be creative with. so we've got these fingerless mittens. Um, this project, i just have a couple more little things to show you.

This project is called the Galentine's Exchange beanie, and you might be thinking, ok, i see a couple of granny squares, but what's going on with the rest of that? So, uh, around Valentine's Day, or Valentine's Day, um, i did a live tutorial, uh, with Emily Stephen. We worked up these hats together. And so the premise of this was that if you have a group of crafty friends, maybe some people sew, some people knit, some people crochet, um, the idea was that you would make a bunch of squares, like enough to make one hat, and then you would go to a party or you could exchange through the mail, or however you wanted to divide things up. Um, and then you swap squares with your friends, and so they bring, you know, bring squares to this party or exchange them through the mail, and so do you.

You switch, swap them, so you have a good mixture, and then you put them together, all these squares from your friends, and you put them together into this hat. so. there are instructions for all of these different squares. So there's some that are just fabric with a little bit of a blanket stitch, and some embroidery on, or here's a little applique that has uh, a blanket stitch embroidery to keep the heart onto this background. This was actually, this background is a felted sweater that I cut up.

Um, and then I did a little blanket stitch around here. This is a knitted square. If there are any of you out there who are knitters, you can knit just little striped garter stitch squares. This one was crocheted and just has a little chain stitch embroidery on it. Of course, we have our general granny squares here and here.

Um, and then we have little antaria knitted square here as well. So these are all different styles of making squares, and you could, but you could certainly just make one, you know, one square that is the same throughout this whole project. Like, say you just wanted to make this hat for yourself, you didn't want to do the whole exchange thing. With other people, you could just make, you know, enough squares, so this would be 1, 2, 3, 4, yeah, so this would be 10 squares per hat. So you would just make 10 of these little granny squares and then you could follow along with the pattern to connect them all together into this shape, and then you just add a little bit of ribbing.

So what you see here, this is a knitted ribbing, but I do have instructions on how to do a sewn version and also how to do a crochet version. So, um, so what I'm saying is this hat is sort of like, you know, gives you lots of options. It's sort of like a choose your own adventure project really, um, but you could make it all granny squares and then, um, put it together and have a bunch of different different granny squares in your little hat. So this is a free download if you guys are interested in making that, and there's live tutorials um all about making this hat and all the different little sections. So the last thing I wanted to talk about, oh, we've got a hello from Bailey.

Hi Bailey. Thanks for saying hi. Um, the last thing I wanted to talk about is this little hexagon cardi. So this is kind of veering off into hexagon granny square land, which I decided I wasn't gonna talk about all the different shapes of those because they're not actually squares anymore. But here's the little surprise.

These are little granny squares on the back. So if anybody has made a hexagon cardigan. And felt like it was too narrow and you wanted it like a box of your sweater a little wider, you or also you didn't like dealing with how the two panels, normally you make two hexagon shaped pieces and steam them together right on the back and then that makes. The um The neck doesn't really want to open up around your neck. I mean, it's a kind of a looser fabric, you know, all these double crochets, so it still works.

But if it bugs you and you wanted to have that extra little bit of a space there, you could put some little granny squares straight down the back of your sweater to kind of bump those two hexagon pieces away from each other a little bit, um. And that way it gives you a little bit more room for the neck at the back so you can see here what that looks like. If you guys are interested in learning how to make this hexagon cardigan, there is a tutorial on the Creative Crochet Corner website. It's a, I believe it's a premium video, so you have to be a member in order to learn how to make the sweater itself, um, but in the tutorial, they don't, um, we don't talk about adding these little things, that's just. A little different thing that I did for this little baby sweater that I was making, so you'd have to just kind of add those little granny squares into the back and then I just made this little ribbed band and then stitched it on all the way around the neck like that to to kind of give it a little bit of a shawl collar.

So I wanted to bring this in here just to get your minds thinking about how you can incorporate granny squares into other things. Like it doesn't have to be a mostly granny square project, like you could add granny squares onto something else that you're making like along the top edge of a bag, or you know one little granny square, like you could stitch it onto a hat that would make a cute little just like a little focal point, you know, you can use them as decoration, you can use them for fit issues, you can add them into sides of sweaters if you want to bump out the sides a little bit, um, you know, you can really think of. The way that I think of granny squares, granny squares myself is just like they're little building blocks and you can use them to add on and kind of change the shape of something or to make something, you know, completely from scratch out of granny squares, you know, either way, um, but there are so many different uses for granny squares and so many different, you know, just. I mean, you can see here there's such a wide variety depending on like what materials you're making your granny square out of, you know, you can do all sorts of interesting things with granny squares. There's no limit.

I hope that you guys have enjoyed this live tutorial, well, live show and tell, really, and I hope that I've given you some, you know, exciting new ways to use granny squares, and if you guys want to add anything else into the comments, um, for future people who are viewing this to see like the types of projects that you like making with granny squares, I would love to see that. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Bye everyone.