Crochet Square Pattern

After a year+ hiatus, here is a new project. I think this is a lovely gift for someone going through chemotherapy.  I hope to make more in different sizes and colors for Project Valentine.  Thanks to Julie for sharing this great pattern for her Sugar Cone Skully Hat.  Easy and quick, this lovely hat is soft and loose fitting and cool enough for summer.  Give it a try!  Here is mine!

So my search for online projects continued. I saw this picture online, and had to see if there was a free pattern for it. I thought, "That would make a lovely blanket!" Don't you agree? 

Isn't it beautiful?

So naturally, I was intrigued and went to the website to be greeted with this diagram. Diagrams look so daunting, but if you know what each symbol means, they aren't as hard as they look. Don't get me wrong, they aren't easy either, just not as hard as one would think.  I must have done this, unraveled it and restarted it about five times before I was satisfied. Knowing how to read a diagram opens up so many more free patterns to use online from all the wonderful crocheters out there who love to share.  Try as I might, I can't find the original diagram website.  

Lucky for me, I found this diagram legend. It breaks down each symbol for your ease of diagraming! Check it out and see if it opens up a world of diagrams for you too!

Mine doesn't quite look the same. It bunches up on the outer middle sections. I even modified it on about my third try, by taking all the CH 1 stitches down to 0, the CH 3 stitches down to 2, and the CH 5 stitches down to 3 (except for the corners where I left them at CH5). While it looked much less squished and bunched, I still see the bunching in the middle sections along the outer edge. I suppose once you get a bunch of blocks made and stitch them all together in a blanket, it won't matter.

My dear friend told me that my finished project doesn't look like the original author's finished project because they probably used the wet blocking technique, which looks like a lot of work to me!  She even gave me this cool link to a DIY Blocking Station for Crochet Squares which still looks like a lot of work, but in the end, would be way easier than the first method. This one, I might have to try.  Some other time.  In the future.  Not now.  Not for this project.  But in the future.  Later.  Much later.

Being somewhat OCD, I was curious how it would look if I reduced the starting circle from 16 DCs to 8 DCs thereby eliminating the middle loops. While my modified recipe is significantly smaller, it is still very pretty, and I think would make a lovely blanket. And looking at them side-by-side, I think even the larger bunchy square would also look lovely in a blanket.  So I think I may have to try both. 

In the meantime, here is my pattern for the smaller square.  I hope you will try it and make something beautiful with it.  Let me know if you have any questions!


DC 8 Magic Circle **or** CH 9, SL into the first ST
Row 1: SL into circle center.
             DC 8x into the center of the circle.
             Join into top of DC-1 with SL.
Row 2: SL into 1st gap.
             CH 3; DC 2x into same gap; CH 1.
             *DC 3x into next gap; CH 1; Repeat around from *.
             Join into top of DC-1 with SL.
Row 3: SL into the next ST; SC into next gap.
             CH 3 (counts as 1st DC); DC 4x in same gap; CH 3; DC 5x in same gap (corner made)
             Skip 3 ST; SC into next gap.
             **Skip 3 ST; DC 5x in next gap; CH 3; DC 5x in same gap
             Skip 3 ST; SC into next gap. Repeat 3x from **.
             SL into the top of the first DC at the beginning of this row, fasten off.


Stay tuned!

xo ~

Rolly <3