The Flora Blanket Crochet-A-Long: Part Five

Welcome back for week five of the Fall Flora Blanket Crochet-A-Long! 

Get ready for an exciting week because this week, we are finally joining our squares together into a blanket! For this week’s progress, we will need our finished squares and a 5.0 mm hook to join the squares together. We will be using a technique known as the “continuous join as you go” or CJAYG method. If you aren’t familiar with this, no worries! I’ll be walking you through all the steps to get your squares stitched together and ready for snuggling!

As a reminder, the joining technique for this fall Flora blanket crochet-a-long is slightly different from the join used in the original Flora Blanket. This crochet-a-long will not go over the original join method which is a little bit thicker than this CAL blanket. See the differences in the blankets below:

If you’d rather use the original join technique or have your own copy of the pattern, use the code FLORACAL here to save now on the pdf pattern!

Is it too late to join?

Of course not – it is STILL never too late to join! You can start here for all of the details. This is where each part of the Flora  blanket crochet-a-long will be posted weekly. You will want to start with the FAQ page and the Materials List page to get up to speed. Then, find Week One, Week Two, Week Three and Week Four posted! Pick your colors, your  blanket size and use your Flora planning page to get an idea of your layout! We have a fun instagram crochet-a-long chat group for inspiration, support and just general friendship. If you’d like to join in with a community of friends, check it out here !

WEEK FIVE:

Alrighty, let’s see those squares come together!

If you aren’t finished with squares yet, it’s OK if you want to jump ahead. I know joining them together is the fun part and you are probably quite tired of making flowers and squares over the last month!! The blanket will be worked in rows from the top to the bottom, so as long as you have the squares for the top rows done, feel free to start joining!

This week, you’ll need a 5.0 mm hook. You can use a smaller hook if desired, but I prefer the larger hook as you don’t want your join to be too tight. Stepping up a hook size is helpful to keep that tension nice and loose. We will be working exclusively with chains (ch), single crochet (sc) stitches and slip stitches (sl st) this week. You will need your main color, or whatever color you’d like to join with, this week. For this blanket, my border color is Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn, Ivory.

To assemble the panels, you will work sc stitches along the edges of each square. When squares need to be connected to each other, you will work an sc stitch followed by a sl stitch. The is the “continuous join as you go” (CJAYG) method which allows you to crochet squares together rather than sewing them.

The squares will be joined working across in rows, from the right to the left. You will work row 1 across right to left and then all the way back across the bottom of the squares in the row. Then you’ll move down to Row 2, Row 3, etc. This diagram gives an idea of how the squares will be worked.

If you are unfamiliar with this technique, the easiest way to learn and understand the method is to watch a video. The video linked here reviews the CJAYG method and explains how we will be joining the squares for this crochet-a-long blanket.

If you are already familiar with this technique:  

Join in the chain space of the top right most corner square with the joining color yarn. *Ch 1 and sc in the corner space. sc x 16 across the top of the square. sc x 1 in the corner sp*.

Turn to work down the left side of the square and repeat instructions from * to *

Join the next square in the bottom right corner and starting at the * follow the same instructions as above to work up the side of the square, making sure to sl st to the corresponding stitch on the adjoining square to join them together. Continue working in this pattern.

After all squares are joined together in rows, work up the right edge of all rows back to the top right corner. When you reach the corner, ch 1 after the last sc and sl st into the top of the first sc stitch.Do not cut yarn and tie off. You will continue to the edging instructions next week!

BLANKET LAYOUT

If you are following the blanket exactly as pictured, you will have 11 rows total to join. We will join some of them this week and some of them next week. You will need to join them in an exact manner in order to have the same layout as that of the crochet-a-long blanket pictured. To dictate which squares should be picked up and placed where, I will use “AC#” and “ac#.”

• AC indicates the square is the accessory color. So AC1 would mean you are joining a square with a MC flower and a Mauve (or AC1) square background.
• ac indicates the flower is the accessory color. So ac1 would mean you are joining a square with a Mauve (or AC1) flower and a MC background.

The below picture shows the left end of row one. In this row, the squares would’ve been worked from AC3, ac2, AC1.

If you have chose different colors or combinations for your blanket, then make sure you layout your squares as you would like. Stack each row with the right most square of the row on the top!

Here’s the breakdown for this week: 

• SATURDAY:
  • ROW 1: (start with) AC1, ac2, AC3, ac4, AC5, ac6, AC7, ac1, AC2
• SUNDAY:
  • ROW 2: (start with) ac3, AC4, ac5, AC6, ac7, AC1, ac2, AC3, ac4
• MONDAY:
  • ROW 3: (start with) AC5, ac6, AC7, ac1, AC2, ac3, AC4, ac5, AC6
• TUESDAY:
  • ROW 4: (start with) ac7, AC1, ac2, AC3, ac4, AC5, ac6, AC7, ac1
• WEDNESDAY:
  • ROW 5: (start with) AC2, ac3, AC4, ac5, AC6, ac7, AC1, ac2, AC3
• THURSDAY:
  • ROW 6: (start with) ac4, AC5, ac6, AC7, ac1, AC2, ac3, AC4, ac5
• FRIDAY:
  • ROW 7: (start with) AC6, ac7, AC1, ac2, AC3, ac4, AC5, ac6, AC7

Alright, that’s it for Week Five! I am aiming to do another live on Instagram on Sunday, September 22 at 8:30 pm EST. Be sure to send me any questions you have about the joining technique or any other parts of the crochet-a-long.

As always, thank you for supporting my small business and designs!