The Flora Blanket Crochet-A-Long: Part Three

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

Moving along to week THREE! How is your progress coming? At this point, no matter what size blanket you are making, you should have ALL the centers and flowers done. If you are a bit behind…don’t worry! It is OK to move a little bit slower. There will be slower and busier weeks and time to catch up! Hopefully, you at least know your colors and you are working on all of your centers and flowers!

If you still need help figuring out your colors, check out the downloadable planning pdf on the FAQ page. If you’d rather have your own copy of the pattern or don’t want to wait, Use the code FLORACAL here to save now on the pdf pattern.

Is it too late to join?

Of course not – it is 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 and Week Two 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 THREE:

Alrighty, onto week three! So far, we have just been making flower after flower after well…flower. Are you tired of flowers? It’s a lot of flowers but they are so gorgeous all joined together on the blanket! You should have ALL of your flowers finished by the end of week two.

For Week Three, we will be working on turning our flowers into squares. We’ll need our colorful flowers from week two and our main color yarn. If you are making the full-sized blanket, we will work on one color flower for each day of the week. You should have 7 colors with 7 flowers each! If you are making a different sized blanket, you will just need to take half of your flowers this week and turn them into squares.

If you are following the blanket exactly as pictured, grab your main color yarn (HL ILTY Ivory) and your flowers in each of the AC colors. You will need one group of AC colored flowers per day. See the materials list here if you need a refresher on color choices!

This week, we will need to turn each of the colored flowers into squares. We have 49 flowers total, so 7 in each color. To make things easier, we will ONLY be working with the colored flowers and the main color yarn for the squares. Then, hopefully, you won’t have a giant yarn mess of colors! Choose one color flower to complete into squares each day. Again, this breaks down to 7 per day. If you are making a smaller blanket, just cut your total flowers needed in half and plan to make that half into squares this week!

Here’s the breakdown for this week: 

• SATURDAY: Square off AC 1 flowers (HL SS Mauve)
• SUNDAY: Square off AC2 flowers (HL ILTY Cherry Blossom)
• MONDAY: Square off AC3 flowers (HL SS Wheat)
• TUESDAY: Square off AC4 flowers (HL ILTY Light Sage)
• WEDNESDAY: Square off AC5 flowers (HL ID Bluestone)
• THURSDAY: Square off AC6 flowers (HL ID Rosewater)
• FRIDAY: Square off AC7 flowers (HL ID Thistle)

The squares will become second nature by the end of the week!

FLORA GRANNY SQUARE PATTERN:

ABBREVIATIONS:

• BLO – back loop only
• ch – chain
• dc – double crochet
• dec – decrease
• hdc – half double crochet
• inc – increase
• mr – magic ring
• sc – single crochet
• sk – skip a stitch
• sl st – slip stitch
• sp – space
• st(s) – stitch(es)
• tr – treble crochet
• ( ) – work these sts in the same space
• [ ] – repeat instructions within brackets x number indicated

MAKING THE SQUARE

To move onto turning the flower into a square, switch to the desired color for the main square. You will work around each of the petals to make a circular shape first, and then square off the circle. *Note: round numbers continue from the flower round counts*

Round 7: Working in the BLO of the first stitch of Round 6, change color to the desired square color yarn. This color change will be in the space between two flower petals. Ch 3. This counts as the first dc stitch. 

Continue working, starting in the BLO of the next stitch – [hdc x 2, sc x 3, hdc x 2, dc dec] x 6, hdc x 2, sc x 3, hdc x 2. [56]

Sl st to the top of the ch 3. You will have one st from round 6 unworked.

Round 8: Ch 1. Working in the same st as the ch 1, place an sc st and then sc in the next 3 sts. 

Working around the flower, [Hdc, dc, (dc, tr), ch 3, (tr, dc), dc, hdc, sc x 8] x 3. Hdc, dc, (dc, tr), ch 3, (tr, dc). dc, hdc, sc x 4. *Note: The (dc, tr) and (tr, dc) are NOT in the same st. If your stitch counts are off, make sure that you are putting these in two different stitches.  Join to the top of the first stitch. This will square off the circle, so you are left with a granny square! Cut your yarn, tie off and weave in your ends. Now set the square aside to block and join.

*If you need a visual tutorial for making this granny square, you can find the full tutorial here*

BLOCKING

As you finish your squares, you can choose to block them, if desired. I found that blocking the squares while making them was enough to keep the finished blanket pretty even and so I did NOT block the entire blanket at the end.

If you aren’t familiar with blocking, blocking is a way to help straighten and smooth your work. With these granny squares, tension may vary in certain spots so blocking helps to make the square even and uniform.

For this project, I used a blocking board for my granny squares. This was my first time using one, and I loved it! You can find the board I used linked here. This is a wooden board that comes with metal “skewers” for placing squares on the board. It was so easy to move the squares around and adjust the tension as needed.

To block my squares, I set four “skewers” equidistant on the board. After finishing a square, I slightly misted it with a spray bottle, and then placed on the board. The four skewers helped to pull the corners apart to a nice, even and uniform spot. I repeated this with each of my squares. I could get almost all of the squares onto the board, but I did run out of space for the last few as I found only 15 “skewers” for the board, but needed 16!

I left the squares to dry on the board and kept them stacked until I needed to space for more. Once they’ve been blocked, move them to a basket or storage container to keep them nice and neat until joining!

Alright, That is all for Week Three! 

If you have questions about the crochet-a-long or would like to see a blocking tutorial, I will be going live on Instagram on Sunday, September 8st at 8:30 pm EST. The live will be recorded but if you are free, I’d love for you to join me!! If you can’t join or have questions that you’d like me to answer during the live, please go ahead and send them my way!

Looking ahead to week four, we will need all of our MC flowers and then our AC color yarns! Next week, we will continue turning flowers into squares and then move on to joining (finally!!).

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