A Granny Square is worked in rounds. When I say "working in rounds" I am talking about where you start in the middle and your piece grows outward, getting larger, until it is the size you need. Most grannies are worked on one side without turning. Most grannies are also square. But how many bodies do you know that are square? For the most part, people are taller than they are round and a square granny afghan has to be much larger to accommodate height. If you make it rectangular, it can easily cover a person lying down.
We are going to learn different methods of making a rectangular granny. These are the methods I know. There are certainly others as well.
In the first method, we start with a short chain and work along both sides to achieve a rectangular shape. Here’s a two-part video demonstration, followed by some pictures to help you along.
For the first method we will loosely make a chain (ch) of 13 stitches (sts).
Partially completed round 1:
Rounds two and three, respectively:
Note: If you've worked the original granny square tutorial, you may have noticed we've been working two chains in corners rather than three chains. That is because the width of your rectangle is less than the width of your granny at this point. On the next round, we will switch to three chains in corners. If you find your corners are not square, and you want to chain 3, that is perfectly fine.
To make an afghan using this pattern, just repeat row 3. Your ends will have a wider side as you do more rounds, but will be worked the same. Sides are (shell, ch 1) and corners are (shell, ch 3, shell).
METHOD #3 - Caroline’s Rectangle Granny (tutorial created with permission granted from Caroline Francis 4/2005)
This method was introduced to me by Caroline Poust Francis, at the time a part of Happy Hookers Yahoogroup. Caroline very kindly gave me permission to make a tutorial which I've now added in video form.
Here's my how-to video on Caroline's square. Any errors are mine alone.
Note that shell = 3 dc in this method.
For this method you will chain 8, then slip stitch into the first chain to form a ring. You are using a larger number in your foundation chain because you don't actually want a circle. You want more of an oval because you will fit more stitches on the sides than the ends.
In this method, you make two small regular grannies, join them and then work around them. I did two, one with a one-round granny, and one with a two round granny.
Make 2 grannies - saltine (2 rounds) or granny's daughter (1 round):
Join them together:
And work around them:
If you want to do more rounds to actually make something with this rectangle, you just continue as you've been doing, adding corners and sides. You skip all the dc stitches and work in the spaces created by your chains.
Crochet Cabana uses American crochet terminology. For UK/Australia terms & international symbols, click here.
Copyright 1997 - 2012 by Sandra Petit. All rights reserved.
Crochet Cabana created October 1997 (domain name purchased March 2001) Crochet Cabana’s Crafty Corral begun November 7, 2004. The Crochet Cabana Blog begun May 2010. Site update November 18, 2012.
