Granny Chic (and Crochet Technique)

 

I have been busy making some granny squares, as my daughter has asked me to make her a top. She sent me this photo, to give me a bit of an idea of what she was thinking, and at the moment I am just working on lots and lots of squares.

 

We have a joke that her style is granny chic. We both enjoy a charity shop or boot fair, and recently she seems to go for clothes that we both call granny. (Beige jackets, embroidered cardigans, you know the sort of thing. (I hope this doesn't sound like I am being rude, as I am old enough to be a granny, although will nover be a chic one.) At first I would try to put her off, but somehow she seems to be able to put these clothes together in such a way that it turns into "granny chic". It makes me a bit sad that my mum is not still alive, as I think they would have a great time comparing their Edinburgh Woollen Mill tops, and sensible rainwear.

So if the granny square top works out, this will just be part of the granny chic look ...  I will keep you updated.

I do occasionally crochet, but really I am a knitting gal. Part of the problem is I don't crochet enough, so every time I decide to have a go, I have to get my books out and reteach myself the basics. The other problems are I can't follow a diagram pattern, and I am really, really slow. 

But this time I decided to use Youtube to remind myself how to make a granny square. Here is a link to the tutorial I used. It was really good, but what I realised on the first run through was that I was crochetting as a knitter - wrapping the wool around the hook, instead of hooking it. Kept having to pause the tutorial, as I was probably going at less that half the speed. I don't think I had realised this from following instructions in books, so am a real convert to the youtube tutorial, and am trying to work on my technique. When this top is done I may try and branch out to another sort of block. If you can suggest any for a learning novice I would really appreciate it.

I wonder if someone who regularly does crochet, knits in a different way. Hmm ...