JOINING SQUARES

Whipstitch, Backstitch, Mattress Stitch
Slip Stitch, Reverse SC
Join-as-you-go Granny Squares
Continuous JAYG by Susan Van Winkle
Lacy Granny
Joining with Single Crochet

JOINING SQUARES with Single Crochet Joining
c2006 Sandra Petit, http://www.crochetcabana.com

I have used single crochet joining in different ways. I am going to demonstrate each here. First, the most basic. If you use this method, you need to decide if you want your stitches to show on the right side or the wrong side. There will be a raised ridge at the joining and it will "lean" in one direction. If you want it to show on the right side, put wrong sides together (meaning facing each other). If you want it to show on the wrong side, put right sides together. You can also work through one loop or both. If you work through back loop only (BLO) you'll get a pretty ridge and your work will lie flatter, at least mine does.

Caution: Be sure your single crochet leans in the SAME direction on all pieces. Pay attention!

Place a slip knot on your hook, insert hook at the same point on both pieces (I like to begin and end in the center stitch of my corners but that's personal preference) and just single crochet from right to left across the row. Sew ends in or sew over as you go.

Secondly, I want to show you how I joined strips for the Scrap Strip Afghan using single crochet. This is copied from that page.

Joining Scrap Strips with Single Crochet

First, make sure all your ends are securely sewn in. I find this a great help to have them done before.

Then line up the ends of your two strips, wrong sides facing one another. I like my sc edging to appear on the right side of my work. If you prefer it on the back side, then work with right sides facing. Whichever you do, do it the SAME way for all strips.

Also, make sure that you work your single crochet from the same side (angle) or your single crochets will face differently on each strip. In other words if you are sitting with your pieces laid out in front of you, you grab your first two pieces and begin working. Continue working from that side and joining them. Don't get up and go to the other side and start working from the end. If you do some of your single crocheted edgings with lean towards the right and some will lean toward the left. And YOU will end up ripping. :-(

As I said line up your strips. The little humps that appears along the edge of your work when making single crochets should all be lined up next to one another. This will keep you from skipping any. If you're still concerned or you don't know what I'm talking about, count off and use a clip, stitch marker, or safety pin to mark rows. In other words, count off 10 rows and place a pin (on both pieces). When you get to your marker, you should be on the same row on both strips. If you're not, you messed up.

With the humps lined up, your pieces wrong sides together, and your yarn in front of you, insert hook in the first stitch on the side facing closest to you. Go through to the stitch on the second piece (the one you're joining this one to), yarn over and pull through, yarn over and pull through both loops to complete a single crochet.

Insert hook into next stitch over across row, taking care that you continue to keep the "humps" together. If you don't, then when you get to the end of your row you might have extra on one side or the other. Now this presupposes that you have made the same number of rows on each piece. The pattern calls for 300 rows.

Here are some pics showing progression.

Join-as-you-go with Single Crochet

This is a different, more complete and complicated method of joining with a sc. I've never seen it anywhere else though I'm sure someone must have done it. I developed the method so I wouldn't have to sew in so many ends. Homespun is particularly suited to this joining. It looks great. The method takes a bit of space and a time commitment as I leave my squares laid out until I'm done so I don't get mixed up. You may be more organized and have a better memory than I do so it might not be a problem. :-)

First, as I said, you lay out your squares in a pleasing pattern. Pleasing to you, of course. Who else will you please? Then you decide if you are going to do columns or rows. I did rows first and then columns.

Here are pics showing the partially completed ghan. The picture shows the rows finished and two columns left to do.See where it's open between the last two columns?

I joined the first square of row 1 to the first square of row 2 with a single crochet. Then, without breaking yarn, I attached the next two (second square of row 1 and second square of row 2) so that I now had four squares joined across the width, but the length was still open. You see that I am not joining squares to one another in the conventional sense of joining a row of squares or a column of squares. I am joining one row to the next row without first joining the squares, saving myself a whole bunch of trouble and a lot of ends. :-)

I continued along the row until all of the first row and second row squares were joined across the width. Then I attached the third row squares, still leaving the length undone.

You have to be careful not to flip the squares the wrong way if it is important that they stay in the order you lay them in. Of course, this is important no matter which method you're using to join the squares in an afghan.

When I finished all the rows across, I began to single crochet along the length. Each square was already "attached", but the in-between the squares had to be sewn together. I was careful to make sure the squares were side by side as they were joined. In this case it was easy because all the squares were the same size. Thank you to whomever made these squares!

That's it. When I was finished with the joining, I put a border around the whole thing, sewed in the few ends and voila!

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04/17/08


 

The buttons above were my first at the Cabana. I keep them for sentimental reasons. :-)

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