Getting Hooked on Granny

Adele grabbed a hook and a ball of green yarn.  She quickly made a small foundation chain, then joined it into a loop.  Her hook was really flying, and it was hard to make out what she was doing, but the end result was evident.  She had made the center and two rounds of a granny square before I could blink.  The stitches were even, and the combination of spaces and double-crochet groups perfect.  She held it up proudly.  "Do that with your needles."  ~ excerpt from the new novel, "Hooked on Murder: A Crochet Mystery," by Betty Hechtman.

“Nobody knows whose grandmother first thriftily crocheted her leftover bits of yarn into squares from which to fashion a colorful, warm afghan. But the design of the now classic “granny square” afghan follows the tradition set by the American pioneer women, who made use of every available scrap of fabric to create useful and beautiful patchwork quilts. In fact, in Europe the technique of making granny squares is called “American crochet.” ~ Written by Jean Leinhauser, 1979, in the book, “The Great Granny Crochet Book”

Want to learn how to do the basic granny square?  Check out Sandra's tutorial here.  Please note that the granny square pictured in this blog entry is from the pattern featured in the "Hooked on Murder" novel.