Granny Square Afghans...I've made a few

 

There is nothing quite as relaxing as crocheting a pattern that is simple, and that you have memorized. This is what the granny square is to me. It's comfort crochet, rather like comfort food. Simple, round and round they go, and whether made with lots of colors, or as a solid colored square, for me at least I can whip up a batch in no time. I also love doing crochet in odd moments at work (particularly in the evenings after everyone is ready for bed or off in their rooms doing their own thing).So I have made a lot of these crocheted objects, sometimes not even sure what I was going to do with them, just using up oddments of yarn from other projects.
However there is a downside to the granny square, loose ends as it were. Lots and lots of loose ends, especially those squares with multiple colors. That you have to weave in. In fact, I would say that working the loose ends into the project is one aspect that I have to have many TV episodes of a good series, say, Hotel Babylon, or Wire in the Blood, or In Plain Sight to watch while I sit and hide the ends in the crochet. (Some of my current series I've watched on DVD or streamed via Netflix). The other downside comes in having to assemble all the squares to make the afghan itself.

There are a number of ways to do this, and one of my favorites is to use single crochet to connect the squares to each other, sometime I will even use a contrasting yarn as a part of the look of the design.  As you can see here, it makes a raised grid work pattern between the squares, which I really like as a tactile element. 
For this blanket I had a lot small solid centers that I surrounded with s a variegated multi-colored yarn.   Once the center was together I increased the size by adding some more rows of granny square around the outside. 

One of my favorite aspects of this blanket was the soft variegated yarn that I started with as my blanket center. It was a wool, acrylic blend on sale and I just couldn't pass it up.  So, I have to say that two of the following lap size/child sized afghans were the best of the granny square, without a lot of the downside. Two of the blankets are what I think of as the endless granny square. Instead of stopping at four or five rows per square, you just keep going. To create bands of color you do several rows in a row in the same yarn. Easy as pie. Which reminds me, we had a lovely Thanksgiving this year, a work friend came over, we ate pie and the turkey dinner, watched a movie, drank a little wine and were warm and cozy. I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving too.