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Dear Artsy Craftsy Friends,

After nearly 2 years and a half break from crocheting, I began practicing the art once again on a beginners level. I started crocheting a blanket using the Granny on the Straight Stitch. It will be given as a gift to my bioenergy therapist, who is treating me free of charge.

This article won’t teach you how to crochet the Granny on the Straight Stitch, but it will show the adventure of crocheting a first blanket being a blind person. However, if you want to learn how to crochet the Granny on the Straight Stitch, you can watch my old tutorials that teach you to do just that. Follow the links bellow:
The Granny on the Straight Stitch video tutorial: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.

This is how a Granny on the Straight Blanket looks like. I made it a few years back and I do not remember the materials that I used. It is smaller in size. The one that I plan to make now should be at least twice in size.

Mom got me 10 skeins of yarn, but I am sure I’m going to need a double quantity. Each skein is 75g. The yarn is 100% Acrylic. Length = 210 m. The label recommends using a 3.5mm European size crochet hook, but I’m going to use a 6mm one. It is easier for me to hold it.

The Granny on the Straight Stitch is made of multiples of 4. I made a foundation chain of 300 chains (image 1), since I plan to make the blanket for a Queen size bed. By the way, I decided to crochet the blanket on the long. If you like to crochet your blanket on the wide, you will need to make a smaller foundation chain. You could,for example, chain approx. 200 chains. However, since I tend to pull and stretch the chains, I decided to work a first row of single crochet stitches to make my foundation stronger and more secure. (images2-4) My video tutorial on the Granny on the Straight Stitch does not show you this first row of single crochet stitches. I admit that mom gave me a hand. I tend to skip and miss a lot of the chains, or make more stitches in the same chain.

Then I began crocheting the first real, real row of the Granny on the Straight Stitch. If you remember, this stitch is done in sets of 3 double crochet stitches, also called shells. When a shell is done, you need to chain 1, than skip the next 3 chains of the foundation chain. In the 4th chain, you will work another shell. (Image 5)

The first row of double crochet stitches using white is completed. There are 225 double crochet stitches (75 shells) and 75 chain one spaces. (image 6) Once again mom helped me , but starting with the next row, the work will be a lot easier for me because of all the chain one spaces. They will give me a lot of freedom when touching.

The black and white colors will be changed every two rows. Image 7 shows you how I attached the black color to the end of second row and how I worked a few shells of double crochet stitches. The first row using the black color is completed.(Image 8) Six rows of double crochet are completed. This is how the colors look in contrast. (Image 9) This will be more noticeable as the project advances.

A few technicalities: a skein of yarn of 75g is enough to crochet 4 rows on the long. A small ball of yarn will be left (approx. 10g). I will use it to make the tassels. I’ve used 2 skeins so far. The blanket is 250cm long, and 15cm wide so far. (Image 10)

I placed the blanket on the bed so you can have a guess about it’s length and width so far. Four skeins are over. 17 rows completed. 25cm wide now. (Image 11) By the way, it takes me approx. 30 to 40 minutes to complete a row. I make between 4 and 8 rows per day.

I asked mom to buy me 20 skeins of yarn. She bought me the last 18 skeins that the shop-assistant had, 10 black and 8 white. Lucky me!!!By the way a skein costed us nearly 1,5$. The total cost for the materials for the blanket reached about 45$. (Image 12)

I finished my first 10 skeins of yarn. They were enough for finishing a 1/3 of the blanket. This means a total of 40 rows (approx. 60cm width). (Images 13-14)

1/2 of the blanket is done. 14 out of 28 skeins of yarn were used to crochet 58 rows. The blanket is 93cm in width at the moment. Take a guess how short I am.!? The blanket is growing bigger and bigger It is becoming more and more difficult to turn it around when I end a row and begin a new one. (Images 15-17)

It’s been three weeks since I began working on the blanket. The blanket is nearly done. Got to 3/4. The blanket is 256 cm long and 140 cm wide. I used 22,5 skeins of yarn to complete 96 rows. (Image 18) Sadly, I caught a nasty cold after my dance class. It put my crochet work behind by a few days. I dropped to 2-4 rows a day. It took me 2 weeks to recover.

5th week and working on the last row of double crochet stitches. I’m finishing the blanket in white to match the first row. I asked mom to help me finish the blanket. A last row of single crochet stitches was needed. I was afraid I was going to miss some stitches, so mom made it for me instead. She did one single crochet stitch( scs) on top of each double crochet stitch (dcs) and 1scs in each chain one space across the last row. (Images 19-20)

This is all the yarn that was left from the 28 skeins. Approx. 300g in total. The balls of yarn will be used to make the tassels. (Image 21) We decided that the tassels should be about 10cm long. Mom cut a 110cm long thread as a swatch. (Image 22) We wanted to make more tassels at the same time. Based on the swatch that mom made, we measured ten more threads, then ten more and so on. (Image 23) Each thread was then folded and inserted in each chain one space using a bigger crochet hook. My sister then cut all the ends to make the tassels even and finish them.(Images 24 – 25) Mom made 200 of them, switching between colors. Tassels were added on three sides of the blanket. (Image 26)

Image 27 shows how the blanket looks before the tassels were added. Image 28 shows the final blanket, including tassels, covering the Queen size bed in the bedroom.
Final sizes:
200cm wide, including tassels, 180cm without them;
260cm long with tassels, 250cm without them.
24 skeins of yarn were used to complete 110 rows and 4 skeins were used to make 200 tassels. Some of the yarn was left over.
I used a 6mm crochet hook.

More photos of the crocheted black & white Granny on the Straight blanket:

It took 5 weeks to make the blanket. It was given as a gift to my bioenergy therapist 2 weeks ago. It took him by surprise:

” How much does it cost me?”, he asked me.

“It is art for art”, I answered and received five hugs in a row.

It made me very happy to know that he liked it, and, also, it makes me very happy to know that you, my dear friends, like my very first blanket after the stroke as well. Until the next time.

The Coolorburbians.