A long time ago, I got a Zoom Loom to create little woven squares with. I wove squares with DK weight yarn: some handspun, some leftovers, some commercial yarns. With and without patterns. But all within a colour palette (pink, blue, purple, turquoise, and bits of yellow).
Over time I wove more than 130 squares. But they stayed squares for a long time. I wanted to combine them into a blanket, but hadn’t found a joining method that I liked yet.
Until last week. I had been thinking about finishing the blanket for Freya and myself. It’s winter now, and our house isn’t well-insulated. It can be chilly and drafty. And I had come up with a joining method that seemed promising.
As you can see in the picture, the square doesn’t have straight sides. It’s more like a puzzle piece. So I thought, why not line them up so that the pieces fit together and then single crochet through their loops alternating? I tried it and it looks nice! It’s a bit wiggly, but straighter than expected.
I decided to create two long strips of 12 squares each first. Then I joined the two strips together in parallel. After that, it was just a matter of creating new strips of 12 squares and joining them to the growing blanket.
Whenever I came to a cross point, I crocheted through the ends of the joins of the perpendicular squares too to make sure that no holes would appear.
The method has quite a neat result!
The joins look almost straight, even though they are not. And they’re not bulky at all. I’m using the same yarn thickness as for the squares themselves.
The back looks quite neat too (once the ends are woven in).
Here’s the result! I put it down for a photograph and Freya dived right onto it. She loves it!
There’s still a lot of work to be done though. Look at all those ends that I still need to weave in!
I’m planning to back the blanket with some thin fleece or felt. Some of the squares are thinner or airier than others, and adding some protection to the back would make sure that the blanket will be strong and warm. Before I do that, I will have to decide if I’m content with the size right now. I think that it’s a bit larger than 1×1 metres now, which is nice for on your lap. But I have plenty of yarn left and I could make it bigger.
At least it’s large enough for Freya!
