Granny Square Projects

One Simple Technique - Endless Number of Designs

One of the fun things about Granny's is the wide varieties of designs you can create using the very same basic technique.

There are endless possibilities just by changing colors or types of yarn, the type of stitch, or adding embellishments.   

Large and small, dense and lacy, multicolored and plain. Granny Squares are just like snowflakes, no two are ever alike.

Crocheting Granny Square

Even though the idea of making Granny Squares is as old as crochet itself, perhaps your grandmother wouldn't recognize Granny Square in some of their modern interpretations.

Techniques of crocheting don't stay static. Old and well-known Granny Square patterns follow progress. They have become stylish and fashionable.  You've heard the saying, that what's old is new again and that adage is so true for granny squares. 

Fifty or more years ago, granny squares were predominately used to make afghans or blankets of various sizes. Some creative souls also combined them to form types of clothing such as vests, jackets, or slippers.  Granny squares made with thin cotton thread were crocheted in to doilies used to decorate tables and even sofas.

Today we have plenty more uses for granny squares, and lucky for the beginner, granny squares are one of the easiest projects to make.

Nevertheless, to crochet most of them the same old method has to be used. We call it traditional crochet in rounds technique.  But that doesn't mean that granny squares are round.  You can create any number of sides, but the most traditional is the four-sided granny square.

An Intro or Review of the Traditional Granny Square

For those well acquainted with the granny square, please feel free to skip this section and go straight to the granny square projects.

  • A Granny Square, like any crocheting in rounds projects, begins from a specified number of chain stitches that are joined into a ring by a slip stitch. 

  • A typical granny square worked from this ring outward using crochet stitches, such as the double crochet stitch.

  • Each round that you work will have more stitches, in fact, 16 more to be exact.  

  • You can make as many rounds as you like depending on how big you'd like your square to be.

  • You can make it all one color, alternate colors, or make each round a different color.

Here is a chart for two rows of a Granny Square .

It will let you idea about the process of crocheting Grannies shown in the videos presented on this page. Follow them step by step, learn the basics. Depending on pattern you use to crochet Granny's, very often we have different combination of sc (or dc) and chains. Their total number in each row still has to follow Law of Circle which I mentioned above.

Once you figure out the logic of their crocheting, you are ready for creating your own designs of stunning garments, which are based on Granny squares. Process of perfecting never ends.

Step 1: Crocheting Granny Square. Make a chain

Step 2: First row forms a square.

Step 3: Second row of Granny Square

Step 4: Third row

Step 5: Taking care of the tails.