Day 18: Picture Squares: Part 1 - Garden

Garden-Themed Squares

When we first started talking about adding picture squares to the original geometric squares I had developed, I sketched out a whole page of various flowers, trees, bugs, leaves and other nature inspired items. I came up with the idea to layout the squares to make a flower garden picture afghan and settled on the 5 here, plus the Sun Square (which the editors thought fit better in the Space Square chapter).

Square #17: Tulip

The shape of this Tulip may look familiar if you have seen my Willow Dress in the Interweave Crochet Spring 2013 issue. I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel, and simply made the shape a little bit bigger. If you look at the current Summer issue of Interweave, they included a photo from a reader who made the my dress pattern (that was my first garment pattern).


Square #18: Daisy

The Daisy is a nice symmetrical flower shape for practicing the smooth curved shapes that are possible with this technique (without the jagged edges seen in most crocheted colorwork). The book includes instructions to make both the Daisy and Tulip without the stem, so you can use just the flowers alone in an alternative design.

Square #19: Stem with Leaf

The Step with Leaf is a fun one. Because of the reversibility of the fabric, you can flip every other leaf square over (to put the leaf on the other side) as shown in Grampa Kit's Garden afghan. This one also shows off the smooth lines possible in the technique when worked in simple, upright color changes.

Square #20: Stem with Grass

This square is deceptively the most difficult square in the book! Those 4 rows of grass involve more color changes than any other square. And even with my tricks for avoiding extra ends to weave in (included in the book), there will still be a large number of ends. The biggest trick is managing to weave those ends in ONLY under and through stitches of the same color.

Square #21: Dragonfly

And the Dragonfly is one of my favorites. I started with a Butterfly, Bumblebee, and Ladybug too, but decided the garden would be a little too busy with all those bugs. Perhaps they will fit in the next book. I was also limited on the colors of the Dragonfly, as I wanted to make them work using only the colors I already had for the flowers (to avoid requiring the purchase of extra skeins). But you could make it in any color you like!

For more information on Reversible Color Crochet, see: http://www.interweavestore.com/reversible-color-croc...