The “Rose” Baby Blanket

When preparing the “Rose Granny Square”-tutorial a couple of months ago, I had to crochet several new squares myself and really enjoyed making them again.
A friend saw the new bright and happy squares and asked me to make a baby blanket for her little niece.
While discussing colors and size, she said she would like this blanket to have the same fleece backing, as the big one I had originally made with these granny squares.

I liked that idea very much, but came to think that this would restrict people from using the blanket year round. It would obviously be way too warm in spring and summer, whereas the blanket consisting just of the cotton squares would be too cold in fall and winter …..
That’s when I decided I’d try to make the back of the blanket removeable!

However, I first had to come up with a way to join my new “Rose”-squares.
No matter how much I still like the look of the joins on the big “Rose Square Blanket“, in retrospect there’s only one conclusion: too time consuming.

So I needed to search for a different type of join, preferably a continuous one.
I tried the flat braided (continuous) join (tutorial here), but wanted a more substantial stitch, preferably a double crochet/treble stitch. The pattern of the square only giving me 14 stitches on each side, made it quite the puzzle to evenly divide the stitches, but I figured it out ….. eventually, and I’m very pleased with the result.

If you want to give it a try too, here’s what I did.
Just keep the continuous join as you go-technique in mind, adjust your stitches, follow the chart and you’ll zoomingly crochet your “Rose Granny Squares” together!

How to join your “Rose Granny Squares”
The “Rose Granny Square” has 14 stitches on each side. It’s best to start in a corner, right in the middle of the 4 corner stitches of the previous round (so 2 dc’s on each side when you insert your hook). Begin with 1 dc, 2 chains and one dc, first corner made.
After that you’ll continue with 1 dc, 1 dc (so, one dc in every stitch, making sure you don’t miss that first dc of the previous round – the stitch is kind of hiding right next to the last corner stitch), one chain – skipping one stitch of prev. round,  *1 dc, 1 dc, one chain – skip one stitch *, repeat from * to * 2 more times.
In total you should have 4 sets of 2dc/one ch on this side of the square. Now you’ll crochet 2 dc’s in the last two stitches of the previous round (stitches 13 and 14) and in between the 4 corner dc’s from the prev. round you’ll crochet 1 dc, 2chains, 1 dc (2nd corner made). Continue to crochet all around your square.
          
You’ll want to do this with every square, it really works very well using the continuous join as you go-technique!

The next little challenge was the border: I always love this part of a crochet project! Since I planned on attaching a removable fleece backing using buttons, button holes were needed, this being the more elegant option when compared to velcro……
Precisely where two squares joined, as well as in the corners, I crocheted a small opering (skipping 2 st from prev. round, chaining 2) – just big enough for the buttons to fit through.
The last round on this border in bright blue was quite the puzzle to get right, but after a couple of tries, this is how I liked it best.

The blue part of the border is crocheted like this:
Attach yarn, chain 5, yarn over, insert hook in 3rd chain from hook, pull up a loop – leaving yarn on hook. Yarn over, inserting hook in same chain, pulling up a loop 3 more times, leaving all loops on hook. Total loops: 9. Yarn over, pull yarn through all loops, chain two, sc in next space.

After having the crochet blanket washed and blocked, I cut and seamed the fleece backing, sewed the buttons – all 32 – to the orange fleece and ta-dah!
          

I soooo love it when an idea works out just the way I’ve planned it in my head: very, very happy with this multi-season baby blanket!

Love,
Marianne