Adventures in Paper Piecing, Knit and Crochet Away!

Starting a New Granny Square Blanket

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A couple years ago on a whim I bought several skeins of Lion Brand yarn’s Re-Spun line of yarn. Re-Spun is yarn made from recycled plastic (see my post Plastic Yarn?).

I decided to make a granny square crocheted blanket with the yarn and crocheted up some of squares:

I hated them. They looked okay but they were too flimsy and didn’t feel right (not sure how to specifically describe it) and I didn’t think they would work well for a cozy blanket. I was crocheting them in the only granny square pattern I knew at the time.

So I abandoned them and put the granny squares, in various stages of completion, and the yarn away.

Then I taught myself via YouTube how to make the sunflower block granny square and made this blanket which is now sitting on the recliner in my living room:

Near the end of last year I stumbled upon a stash of the Re-Spun yarn in the thrift store for $1.99 a skein (it retails for $8.99 a skein now). I grabbed all they had (you can’t see all the colors in the image below but I’ll share more images of the yarn in a future post):

I think it was an “out of body” purchase experience, because when I got home I thought: “What were you thinking? You abandoned the project with the original three skeins of yarn!”

Then I remembered the sunflower pattern I loved (it made a very cozy blanket) and decided to do some frogging (I never heard this term before until I read it in the post of other bloggers and now I know it is unraveling your work) on the previous granny squares because it would be an atrocity to throw them away when I originally bought the yarn because it was “eco-friendly” – ha!

So after what seemed like tedious frogging, and then crocheting, I have made 58 centers for my new “flower” (they are not sunflower colors) granny square blanket:

I’m going to make a total of 100 centers and then move onto round 2.

Here is the pattern I am using in case you are interested:

I really like the instructional videos by Hooked by Robin!

So I am going to have a cozy “flower” granny square blanket for my library/dining room area. I’ll update you all on the progress.

Postscript

Little follow up on the post ScrapHappy April 2026: Update on the EPP Quilt:

I made myself work on TEDIOUS sewing the sides of the hexie flowers on the remaining 50 blocks. If I don’t start doing it, I won’t have anything to report for May’s ScrapHappy post on this quilt!

I got 6 done yesterday, 44 to go.

If only little magical creatures could sneak into my studio at night and finish them….

Image credit: https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/3900/3960/fairy_7.htm

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Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

19 thoughts on “Starting a New Granny Square Blanket”

  2. Might just be me but when I sew the hexy flowers I do the side at the same time as I am sewing to the centre. So I sew one on to the centre and then I sew the next one to both of them with one bit of thread. You get to the last one and do three sides in a U shape. The hexagon police might be turning in their graves but saves having to come back and do all the sides

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  6. Tierney, your hands are never idle. I’m glad you’ve got a plan in place to make lots of flowers for a new blanket. I enjoyed watching the first half of her video, and I’ve bookmarked it for future viewing.

    I taught myself how to double and triple crochet from a book several years ago, but then I dropped it before getting any better. Kate made me a gorgeous holder for my hooks when I first blogged about it.

    I don’t know what stops me from picking it up again. I love the rhythm of crochet and knitting.

    You’re well underway with your 100 circles. It was fun for me to watch how to make that first circle, and then closing the “donut hole” with the pull of the yarn. Honestly, crocheting still looks like magic to me. I will look forward to seeing your progress.

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  9. What a lucky find to get more of that yarn! Your new flower blanket is going to be as beautiful as your sunflower one 🙂 You may need to leave treats out to get the magical creatures in to finish your hexis 😉

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