Cracking Granny Squares

I've wanted to make Granny Squares for ages. In fact, its the reason I learnt to crochet. I dream of making a lovely blanket. But for so long now I just haven't been able to crack them. I can't get my head around them - I'm really bad at following patters, and am trying to rectify this. I have these two great books - one I got a while ago 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton and the other is an amazing Japanese motif design book I picked up in Paris at the Japanese book shop.

Maybe its insane trying to learn granny squares from a book that is not even in English - but the designs are so pretty I just had to try.

I found these inspirational posts here and here on Attic24's blog (which could be a new fav blog for me) and I was convinced. I had to give it a go! On Friday I was home along and it was pouring with rain, so what better time to struggle through and crack the granny squares. I started with a few misses rather than hits - they looks ugly, very ugly. I had bookmarked The Purl Bee's granny square project ages ago and she also helped me through the tough times.

I got so excited that I just kept going and going. They really don't take too long to churn through each square side. I was using up my oddments from ebay, unfortunately I had to stop as my little scraps of yarn are not long enough now to go round a whole square.

Watch this space - there will be more granny squares.