Another challenge - Granny a day

Yesterday I discovered Pip Lincolne's "A Granny a day" challenge on her blog, Meet Me At Mike's.  The idea is to rediscover the Granny square and make one a day.  It looks like this has been going for a while and I'm a late arrival, but that's okay.

I like the idea of one thing a day.  The focus often leads me to find unexpected inspiration and to make new discoveries.  I've fallen by the wayside with the photo a day challenge this month.  It's just not igniting my interest this month.  Instead, I'm going to crochet a Granny a day.

I don't like to over think these things so my approach to colour and construction is random.  I have a big basket of yarn in the colours that I like (you won't find yellow in there!).  Colour selection is achieved by closing my eyes and seeing what I come up with.

Granny squares take me back to when I first learned to crochet.  My real Granny taught me how to make one and my first project was ambitious.  I would make a giant Granny square which would be a square rug.  There would be one for me, one for my brother and one for my sister.  We still have them.  I started with mine and distinctly remember announcing my colours as being "autumn": green, orange and bone".  My sister's was shades of pink and my brother's was shades of brown (sorry Douglas!).

I remember my Granny's patience as she reminded me about how to hold the yarn, how to turn a corner, how to do a slip stitch.  We finished them off with rounds of double crochet and then Granny taught me how to do crab stitch - you basically crochet backwards.  This was sensational and felt very grown up to be able to finish things off in the same style as my grandmother, who was a very accomplished master of many needle crafts.

I haven't made a Granny square for years and it feels nice to go back to where I started.  I had to do a little research to remind myself of the details, but it has all come flooding back.

For those interested in the technical details, I'm using 8 ply wool (Shepherd's, Cleckheaton Country and Lincraft Superwash) that I have in my stash and a 4 mm hook.  I'm completing 7 rounds, completing the set up and the first two rounds in the one colour and then changing colour at the beginning of every round.  To avoid having a million ends to sew in, I crochet over the ends so there is none of that.

Here's the one I made yesterday (Monday 16 July):

The colours are actually pink - they look quite orange in this photo.
(c) divacultura 2012

Here's the second one I made yesterday.

This one does have orange in it!
(c) divacultura 2012

I'm yet to make one today.

I'll post back here with photos regularly for an update.  I wonder what they will become?

Why not join in?  It's a great opportunity to do something manageable and play with colour. It might inspire you to learn a new skill. You could even donate a finished blanket to charity.  I'd love to see your work!