Granny Stripe Blanket: Part 3

Woohoo, we’re on the final installment of my pattern and photo step-by-step tutorial to make this sweet little granny stripe baby blanket! I’m glad we’ve made it this far. I’m not going to lie to you, friends, I’ve gotten tired of photographing and writing up steps for this blanket. But I will never get tired of this classic, simple style. So pretty.


If you’re just joining in, or need to jump back, feel free to revisit the first two parts of this series using the links below . . .
Part 1: Blanket Pattern
Part 2: Timesaving Tips and Tricks
Today we’ll finish it up with a nice wide border, ending with some sweet little scallops.
After working through parts 1 and 2, you should have a nice little blanket, completed and ready to add a border. I ended mine when it was something like 30-32 inches square.  My border adds another 4 or so inches. I think this is a nice size for a baby blanket—easy to carry around or play on or snuggle with.
To start the border, either chain 1 with the color you used last, or, if you want your border to be in the color you aren’t currently using, fasten off the last stripe color and join in the border color at the corner of your final row, and chain 1. Work 1 single crochet in each stitch, all the way across this top edge of the blanket. (I like to work the final single crochet of each cluster into the little opening between each cluster instead of just through the top two loops of the stitch. I think it looks neater this way. You can see where I work this stitch in the photo below.)

Work your single crochets all the way across the top edge of the blanket. When you get to the corner, work 3 single crochets all in the same corner space before continuing on. This will allow you to work evenly around the corner so your border stays nice and flat instead of curling up.

Now we’re on the side of the blanket, and there aren’t obvious stitches to work our single crochets into like there were along the top edge. You’ll work 2 single crochets around each double crochet (or chain) that starts/ends each row.

If your border looks a little wavy or uneven at this point, don’t worry. As you add more rows, it evens out beautifully.
Once again, work 3 single crochets into the corner of the blanket. Continue working single crochets across the bottom edge of the blanket (which is the starting chain—just place one single crochet in each chain across the bottom), work 3 single crochets into the corner, then continue up the remaining side with 2 single crochets around each dc/ch. Finish up with 3 single crochets in the final corner, and slip stitch to the starting chain 1 of the border to join.
Chain 1 and continue working around until you’ve reached the width you’d like for your border. (Remember to always work 3 single crochets into the point of each corner! Other than the corners, work 1 single crochet into each single crochet around.) When you’re happy with the width, slip stitch to your starting chain 1 to join.

On to the scalloped edge! Don’t chain again before beginning this final row. The last thing we’ve done is slip stitched to join the start and end of the final row of single crochets.
Without chaining, skip the first stitch of the row, and work 5 double crochets all into the next stitch.

Skip the next stitch, then slip stitch into the following stitch. This slip stitch will ‘anchor’ this first scallop down.

Skip the next stitch, and work 5 double crochets all into the next stitch; skip next stitch and slip stitch into the following stitch. Continue all the way around the blanket (you don’t have to change anything to work around the corners; just continue with the pattern of skipping a stitch, placing 5 dcs in the next, skipping a stitch, then slip stitching into the following stitch). So, to summarize, each scallop will have 5 double crochets all worked into the same space, with one skipped stitch on each side, and a slip stitch between each scallop.

As you work your way around and get closer to the start of your scalloped row, you may find that you’ll need to fudge it a little to get your final scallops to fit in nicely. Just do your best to fit them all in as evenly as you can. No one will ever notice if you skip more than one stitch between the final few scallops, or pack them in a little more tightly with fewer skipped stitches. For my last scallop, I had to put two scallops right next to each other without skipping the spaces between them. It’s okay.
When you reach your first scallop, slip stitch to join. Fasten off and weave in all ends. You’re done!

I just love how these sweet granny stripe blankets look. They have such a timeless look, but depending on the colors you choose, you can really make them look so fresh and modern.

Granny Stripe Blanket: Part 2

Last Monday, I shared a photo step-by-step to get you started making a sweet little granny stripe baby blanket. Today, I want to show you two neat little timesaving tips you can use while you’re working to speed things up and save yourself a lot of weaving in at the end. I HATE weaving yarn tails in at the end of a project—it is absolutely, positively, definitely my least favorite part of crocheting. So these two tricks will help cut down on the amount of tails you end up with at the end. Big win in my book.

Timesaving Tip #1: Crocheting tails in as you go
This is a nifty little method to incorporate the tail as you’re crocheting, so you won’t have to sew it in later. If you do this little trick, you can weave the tails in while you’re working, and it’s just as secure as it would be if you waited until the end of your blanket and sewed it in as you normally would. I love being able to cut out that step.
Okay, so here we are, ready to change colors for the next stripe of our blanket. We’ve joined in the silver yarn and chained 3 to begin our next row. To work that silver tail in as you go, pull the silver yarn tail to the front of your work and use your thumb to hold it down snug against the first 3 double crochet cluster of the previous row.

Begin your next double crochet as normal—you’ll be working right over the silver tail, trapping it under the stitch. But don’t finish the double crochet just yet—stop halfway through the stitch (you’ll still have 2 loops on your hook). See how the stitch is worked right over the silver tail?

Now bring the silver tail up and drape it over the silver working yarn, from front to back. I hope this is clear in the picture below . . . this process was a little difficult to photograph. (And I tried 3 times to shoot a video and they were all disastrous, so photos it is.) To summarize so far, the silver tail went underneath the double crochet, and now, halfway through the double crochet, it is coming up and over the working yarn. Hold the tail at the back of your work for now.

Finish your double crochet stitch as you normally would, by grabbing a loop of the working yarn and pulling it through the two remaining loops on your hook. The silver tail should now be coming out of the halfway point of that stitch—see how in the picture below, the tail is coming right out of the middle of the double crochet?

To continue from here, drape the silver tail over the working yarn again, this time bringing it from back to front over the working yarn (the opposite of what we did in the previous step when we draped it from front to back). So it’s now coming up and over the working yarn, and should be pulled forward to the front of the work again. By draping it over the working yarn as we work the stitch, we’re carrying it up along with the stitch as it’s made, essentially weaving it in, just like we would at the end if it were just a dangling yarn tail. Hold it down snug with your thumb against the next 3dc cluster of the previous row.

Now we’ll just repeat what we did already from the start—work the first 2 double crochets of this 3dc cluster right over the silver tail. Stop halfway through the third double crochet.

Repeat the front to back, then back to front draping process that we did before. Bring the tail from front to back over the working yarn, finish the stitch as normal, then bring the tail from back to front again over the working yarn. The yarn tail will always go underneath all three stitches of each cluster, then it will be draped and carried up with just the final stitch of each cluster.
Continue this process until you’ve run out of yarn tail. It’s best to stop when the yarn tail is underneath the stitches rather than mid-stitch. See the picture below—the little stubby end of the silver tail is coming out of the sixth dc cluster of the row, and instead of trying to carry it up into the final double crochet of the cluster, I just left it there. And since it’s been carried under and up and through all those clusters, it’s just as secure as it would have been if I’d waited until I was finished with the blanket and sewn it in. Neat, huh? Having fewer tails to sew in really makes me happy.


Timesaving Tip #2: Carrying colors
Another super easy trick is to eliminate many of the yarn tails altogether by carrying the colors up the side of the work instead of cutting them at the end of each row. This really only works if you’re planning to do a border around your blanket, which will hide your ‘carried’ yarn. If you’re not going to add a border, I wouldn’t recommend this. And this works best if you’re doing short stripes (like my blanket with two rows in each color), and only switching back and forth between two colors.
So here we are at the end of our silver stripe, ready to switch back to blue for the next stripe. But wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to cut the blue to rejoin it, and cut the silver to join it in again for its next stripe? So many tails to weave in. I hate tails so stinking much.

So let’s not cut anything. Instead, we’ll just bring our blue working yarn up and pull it through the silver loop already on our hook.

You have to be quite careful with your tension here. Pull the silver yarn snug, and play around a bit with the blue yarn to see how it looks if you leave that yarn you carried too loose (it’ll gap open against the side of your work, and be harder to hide effectively with a border later), and how it looks if you pull it too tight (it’ll make your blanket pucker and scrunch up if it’s pulled too tightly). You want it to be just snug enough that the edge of your blanket lies flat without the carried yarn looking too loose.

Now you’ll make your chains and just continue crocheting normally. See how the blue yarn that we carried up is lying nicely against the edge of the work?

Let’s fast forward two rows . . . here we are, ready to switch back to silver. We’ll do exactly the same thing we did before. Bring up that silver yarn that’s dangling two rows down, and pull it through the blue loop already on your hook, and continue working normally.

So at the end of each color stripe, just bring up the other color yarn and begin working with it again without cutting anything. One side of your blanket will have all the carried yarn along the edge—see how at the end of each color, you can see the other color being carried along?

That’s why I wouldn’t recommend using this little trick unless you’re adding a border to your blanket. When we add our border, we’ll crochet right over those carried yarns, and you won’t even be able to see them anymore—perfect!
Next week, we’ll finish it up when I share the tutorial for the cute scalloped border!

Granny Stripe Tutorial: Part 1

This post will have the pattern and tutorial to make a cute granny stripe baby blanket, the Part 2 post next week will show you 2 neat little time-saving tricks to speed up the process and make things go a little faster, and the Part 3 post will show you how to do the cute wide scalloped border.



I definitely can’t take any sort of original designer credit today . . . granny stripes and squares are just about some of the oldest patterns in existence. My goal here is just to present it in a simple step-by-step way along with pictures, so if you’re newer to crochet (or are a visual learner), it’ll hopefully be made simple enough to tackle. (But the border pattern is my own, so I’ll toot my own horn loud and proud when that portion of the pattern is ready to go. Get your earplugs ready.)

Supplies

- worsted weight yarn in desired colors (for my blanket here, I’m using ‘I Love This Yarn’ from Hobby Lobby in an aqua shade and Red Heart in a really light, silvery gray—and I lost both of their labels ages ago so I can’t tell you any more than that. I’m rocking this tutorial so far! Pinterest fame, here I come!) I’m going to be showing you how to make this blanket in 2 alternating colors (changing colors every 2 rows), but you can certainly use as many colors as you’d like. For the blanket size I’m showing you how to make (a baby blanket roughly 35” square), 1 skein of each color is just the right amount.
- I/5.5 mm crochet hook
- scissors and a large-eye blunt needle to weave in ends

Step-by-Step

Start by making a chain in the color you want your first stripe to be (for a how-to on making a chain, click HERE). You’ll need your number of total chains to be a multiple of 3, plus an extra 2 chains at the end (for turning). You can make your blanket as big or small as you want by making a longer or shorter starting chain—the length of the starting chain will determine the finished width of your blanket (minus the border). For mine, a baby blanket that will be roughly 35” wide (including the border), I chained 74 (a multiple of 3 [72] + 2).

When your chain is the length you need it to be, make a single crochet into the second chain from the hook and in each chain across until you reach the end of the row. Work these single crochets into just the top loop of each chain. (If you need help with single crochets, click HERE.)

Chain 3 and turn your work. This chain of 3 will act as your first double crochet.

This row of the blanket will start and finish with a cluster of 2 double crochets, but since our chain of 3 counts as the first double crochet, we just need to add one more double crochet. So work 1 double crochet into the very first stitch of the row, the one that’s as close as you can get to the chain of 3, as shown below. (If you need help making a double crochet, click HERE.)

Even though it’s really just a chain 3 and 1 double crochet, we’re counting it as 2 double crochet stitches. Good? Good.
Now, skip the next 2 stitches, and work 3 double crochets all into the 3rd stitch. Hopefully you can see this clearly enough in this next picture. So far, we’ve got the chain 3 + double crochet in the first stitch (on the far right of the picture below), then 2 empty stitches with nothing in them, then 3 double crochets all in the following stitch.

Repeat this pattern all across the row. Skip 2 stitches, then work 3 double crochets into the next stitch. So each ‘cluster’ of 3 double crochets should be separated by 2 empty stitches, which leaves a little open space between each cluster.

When we reach the end of the row, we want the final cluster to match the opening cluster, which was 2 double crochets (remember, the chain of 3 + 1 double crochet = 2 double crochets). So instead of working 3 double crochets into that final stitch as we have been doing across the row, just work 2 double crochets into it. This way, the start and end of the row will match.

On to the second row. Instead of starting and ending with 2 double crochets as the last row did, this row will start and end with 1 double crochet. (From now on, each row will alternate between starting/ending with 2 dcs, or starting/ending with 1 dc. Remember that! Every row that starts and ends with 2 double crochets should be followed by a row that starts and ends with 1 double crochet, and vice versa.) Chain 3 and turn your work—this chain of 3 once again counts as our first double crochet.

For the remainder of the blanket, we won’t be working into any of the actual stitch loops. Instead, we’ll work into the open spaces between each of the clusters of the previous row. Work 3 double crochets into the first space between clusters of the previous row (see picture below). Continue across the row, working 3 double crochets into the space between each of the clusters of the previous row.

Again, we want the start and end of the row to match each other. When you get to the end of the row, work 1 double crochet between the 2 stitches of that final cluster. So this row started and ended with 1 double crochet (with the chain of 3 at the other end of the row acting as the first double crochet).

Now it’s time for a color change! Pull a loop of your other color through, leaving a long enough tail to weave in later. Chain 3 with the new color, keeping the previous color pulled snug.

Turn your work, and work your one double crochet into the first space of the previous row (making our first cluster of two).

Continue working across the row, working 3 double crochets into each space between the clusters of the previous row. When you get to the end of the row, end with 2 double crochets in the final space, so it matches the start of the row.

Now just keep repeating the rows you’ve already done, making sure each row alternates between starting and ending with 2 double crochets, and starting and ending with just 1 double crochet.

I’ll be back next week with Part 2, sharing 2 little tricks that will make the process go a bit faster—how to switch colors easily, and how to hide some yarn tails as you go to end up with fewer tails to weave in at the end. Happy crocheting, my granny friends!