Saturday Squared, Week 4

Pattern Name: Peacock Feather Square, heavily modified. I followed the pattern through round three (the rusty red), and then winged the rest of it along the same lines, so to speak. The outside purple border is a shell pattern, made to echo the shape of a male peacock with fully spread plumage.

Yarn: My own hand-dyed reclaimed cotton yarns, along with some dark blue green Noro Cash Iroha. When looking through my scrap bag, I saw several yarns that I knew would make a lovely peacock feather, so I just disregarded fiber type and weight, and I love the textured result!

Leftover from: A variety of projects, including woven straps and a knit market bag.

Saturday Squared, Week 3

Pattern name: 365 Days of Granny Squares, Day 5 (Rounds 1-4), with my own additional five rounds to enlarge the pattern to a 7" square. *This pattern is based off of one designed by Jan Eaton.

Yarn: Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita (the brown/pink), a little bit of the purple Noro Silk Garden Lite from the week before, and an outside border of an unknown purple thick-and-thin wool.

Leftover from: Flower Child Moccasins

Saturday Squared, Week 2

Pattern name: Twinkle Tinkle Little Star

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Lite

Left over from: Fingerless mitts

Saturday Squared, Week 1

Today I'm beginning a new series of very brief posts that I'm going to call "Saturday Squared". For a long time I've wanted to start a collection of granny squares to use up the pretty ends of yarn left over from various knitting projects. I made a baby blanket like this for Jenny last year from some small coordinating balls of cotton yarn, and I love the way it turned out: 

Now I'd like to apply the same idea to a larger bedspread. I'll take my yarn scraps and make brilliantly colored granny squares in all different patterns, and then put them together with wide white sashing to frame each square like a piece in an art gallery. I'm not in a hurry to finish it, so I'm setting the goal of making one granny square every week. I'm a fairly slow crocheter, so this is an achievable, but not ridiculously easy goal. Every Saturday I'll post a picture of my new square, just to add some fun color around here on a consistent basis. Here's my first square:

This is a slightly smaller version of DROPS 120-59. I'm working all of these squares with a size G/6/4.25mm hook, and they are all 7" square. I know that's kind of a funny size, when most granny squares are 12, 9, or 6 inches square, but it seemed to work well with my gauge and the average size of my yarn scraps. I wish I could tell you the name of this gorgeous yarn, but it was a gifted yarn end from my sister-in-law after she knit a happy rainbow keyhole-style scarf for her daughter. Many of the yarns I'll be working with are self-striping, and will work up to show off the yarn colors more than the pattern. But I don't mind, in this case the yarn colors are the show stoppers anyway!