The Simple Granny Square

There is something truly wonderful about the simple crocheted granny square. I can easily see why it has always been popular. It is a wonderful way to use up scraps of yarn both large and small. It works equally well with any type of yarn, thread, plastic, ribbon, whatever. Rarely is a scrap of yarn so small that it cannot at least form the first round of the square.

Aside from its practical side, it can be truly beautiful to look at. Some grannies are boring. There’s no other way of saying it. I try to use the colors in a pleasing way to avoid that. I will often use one color for every other round, and complimentary colors on the alternating rounds.

Still, even the boring granny squares can perk up when they are finally joined into the whole afghan or lapghan, depending on what color is used for the joining stitches.

This final color is the one that frames the individual squares in the project and brings everything together to work as a whole.

In a way, a granny square is much like life.

Scraps of our lives often do not seem to have meaning. Some events are glorious, like some of the brighter, more vivid colors in a granny square. Other events are boring.

But in the end, it’s what God uses as the final material to bind it all together that makes meaning out of it all and brings beauty to the project: our life.