I only took up crochet at Christmas (Christmas day to be precise) so don't profess to be an expert, however, if your forgive the pun, I'm totally "hooked"! The biggest revelation has been the simple Granny Square and the more I've made, the more I've noticed they're bang on trend this year. Rugs, bags, pockets, blankets and cushion covers - all begin with the humble Granny.
They are a great starting point to practice simple stitch and colour combinations, an ideal way to perfect tension and stitch groupings, portable (I always have one in my bag), and depending on your yarn and shade choice can give a vintage look or contemporary feel. I might even go as far to say, perfect your Granny square (or hexagon, circle, pentagon or triangle) and you'll never be stuck for project ideas.
There are a plethora of books available, (as well as countless YouTube videos) so here are three of my favourites; "300 Classic blocks for crochet projects" (Linda P Schapper) offers a mind boggling selection of stars, swirls and floral blocks as well as the standard squares, hexagons and circles. It's clearly set out given written and diagram instructions. Susan Cottrell's "Granny Squares Now" takes the technique a step further looking at the effect of different yarn choices and some wacky suggestions for your square's finished use. My current favourite is Susan Pinner's "Granny Squares ; 20 crochet projects with a vintage vibe". The cushion pictured above is based on the pattern for the flower light shade and is really simple. I love the transition from circle to square - I also crocheted the squares together rather than sewing up so a much more pleasant experience all round.
A couple of words of wisdom though (learnt through bitter experience) sew your end in as you go, (so much nicer than being left with 18 squares worth to do in one go) and remember that US and UK terminology is different - life made much more sense when I realised that "their" double crochet was "our" treble!
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