Crochet Catch-Up Part 2

Happy Sunday everyone! I am back with some updates on the crochet projects I shared with you all last time. If you need a refresh, you can read Part 1 here: crochet-catch-up.html

As I had shown, I was making a big bunch of squares using a flat granny stitch to use up my thinner yarn scraps. Once I had them completed, I laid them all out to get a pattern that I liked. I ended up making a few more squares after taking the picture below so the finished product will have slightly more than this:

I then used up another type of yarn I had to stitch all the squares together using a single crochet stitch. I didn't quite crack the code on how to put these all together perfectly as some of the seams bunch up a bit more than the others, but not bad for my first attempt! This made a lovely little lap blanket that I use at my desk when I'm working. 

We now move on to the blue/green and purple/pink squares that I had made out of the thicker yarn scraps. Where I last left you with those, I had followed a tutorial that showed how to crochet a fabric lining onto the back of a crocheted piece. This did work and the tutorial I followed was very helpful, but I wanted to try some other options as well.

I had a meeting with my creative consultant yesterday (also known as my mother) and we brought out her sewing machine to see if we could find an easier way to line the crocheted squares. We tried many a test and none felt quite right to us. We had issues with the yarn being too thick, the stitches getting bunched up on one side and the fact that it was hard to get a clean finished look. Here are some of our attempts:

After much consultation, we came to the conclusion that I was trying to make the fabric lining work with these and it simply just wasn't working! The new plan for these is to crochet two of the chunky squares together with the unfinished sides in to make a thick fully crocheted potholder. When I crochet the edges together, I can add a little loop for hanging as well. Don't worry, you'll see an update on those when I try out that idea! Seems as though we will have a Crochet Catch-Up Part 3 sometime in the future!

We did, however, come to the conclusion that a fabric lining would work well for some thinner squares I had made. The thinner yarn and my skills just generally improving the more I crochet allowed me to give these squares some sharper corners so it will be easier to attach a square fabric piece to it.

We looked up another helpful video that showed us how to make mitered corners on a sewn piece so that the fabric square would have crisp, finished edges as well:

Once we had the fabric square complete, we could then sew it onto the crocheted square. As this crocheted piece used a thinner yarn it was much easier to sew through. This was actually my first time using a sewing machine so please ignore how terribly crooked my stitches are. The good corner is the one my mother did, the crazy corner is mine ....

There is obviously room for improvement, but we think this is the general idea for these! They make a cute little oversized coaster or "mug rug" as some people call it.

And that's where I'm at for right now! I will be sure to share how everything turns out when it's completed and thanks for following along this crochet journey with me!

 - Rebecca

​P.S. Today's photo on the homepage comes from Pexels user Castorly Stock:
www.pexels.com/photo/brown-and-white-knit-textile-3614132/