industrious inquiry

Blue squares. There is something about the blanket that i want to talk about today, that feels complete. Not just because it is actually finished as a blanket. There is something more. The individual pieces of this blanket were made at various stages as i was learning and relearning crochet stitches. As i started changing my work from my arty farty video installation work and adapting it into something more every day use – you could say crafty farty…

I know i keep saying that i do not follow patterns, but at least i try to look at patterns and learn from them now. Then i did not. I tried to make granny squares from photos, i tried to make them in a similar way, using different stitches, figuring out what worked and what did not. i don’t undo, was and still kind of is my way in crochet. so i went, stubbornly into it, independent as ever, making and trying and trying again to make what i saw and liked…

From memory, some of the times i did not even have the photo handy, just a vague recollection of what i had seen somewhere sometime, or a vague idea of the effect i was trying to achieve.. Still, off i went. trying and trying and trying again, not a lot of preparation involved. In a way, i feel quite nostalgic for the conviction i had then, the freedom, the drive, the whatever the word is for striving and unapologetically throwing myself into the creativity without a plan, learning so so so so much on the go, as i go.

Here is a reminder of some of the various squares from HERE and the original sampler blanket whose story you can read HERE.

At the same time, i am very proud of how my work HAD moved on, how i had finally realised using up resources without a real plan was not really working for me, if anything, it was working against me.. It meant i started accepting help in a way of reading up about different stitches, watching youtube videos online, even buying some patterns not to follow, or to follow for a while, until i decided to adjust/ amend them.

This post is about finally connecting those squares i have had piled up in the workroom for a long time, hidden, wanting to put them together, but not knowing how. I was not sure about many things: what colours to use, what stitch to use, will they even fit together? They all seemed so disparate each time i looked at them, usually i would end up moving them from one bag to another, from one place of storage to another… I avoided dealing with them, because i did not know how to deal with them. A bit like how i have always avoided this traditional way of working to join granny squares (or anything that i am not yet sure how to solve), because the fact that the squares are essentially incomplete until you join them as you go, well, it did not sit with me for whatever reason then..

If you do not know the answer, sit with the question.

– Paraphrased, Unknown
(The above quote i have found recently, and it resonates with me, but unfortunately i cannot find the author or the full quote, so please if you know/ have it, let me know HERE.)

Then i have seen a photo of someone else’s granny square blanket, and something clicked. I saw the photo in one of the closed crochet groups i am a member of on social media. I have tried but not yet been able to get permission from the creator of the beauty to share it with you here.. I will therefore err on the side of caution, and just say that the way the person made their crochet blanket made me realise how i can work all those different shapes and sizes of squares into smaller groups, then a larger, uniformed squares, which would then connect together into the final granny square blanket as it is introduced here.

And then it made sense:

It made sense to try connecting the squares in this old, traditional way of connecting granny squares as you go.

It made sense to connect multiple ones into the same square.

It made sense to keep some of them as single centres and some as groups.

It made sense to encase them in a world of blue.

And so i did it. Finally. It took me very little time, once i had decided, (once i was convicted, on the path, call it what you will), once i was on my way to finally completing the blanket, it took me about 2-3 days of perseverance and some late night crocheting…

I was amazed at how quickly the beauty i am introducing to you today came to be a full usable piece of soft furnishing. Enjoy! I know i am loving having it on the couch and catching a glimpse of it, it just makes me feel something i cannot really articulate in words very well. But i feel it every time i look at it. The closest i can describe the feeling is that it feels a little bit like i have come round full circle, like i have finally found something that was always there, like i have completed something i did not know was outstanding. Little bit like that…

My YouTube channel may as well be getting some more use in the upcoming posts, and some backdated ones, because my blankets are just way too huge to photograph the small details well. Becasue of this, i have decided to record videos of them so that you can get a better sense of what they are like, with all their idiosyncrasies. More of them to come, particularly the gaseous giant mentioned/ summarised HERE, but to start the ball rolling see the video of the above beauty below:

Thank You for reading!

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