Crochet Along Week 1

Welcome to the FIRST (but hopefully not the last) Crochet Along!!!  

I am so super excited to get started on this!  We are going to start and complete an adult size afghan (approximately 50" by 70", 88 grannies total, 8 squares x 11 squares) in 8-10 weeks.  Hefty goal?  Maybe!  We will take it a week at a time and adjust if we need to!  This will put us completing this early November!  Just in time for things to get crazy for the holidays.  Perhaps this could be one of your handmade gifts!

I’d love for you to invite your friends and family to join along as well!  If you are participating and have a blog feel free to take a button!  You may also want to follow me on facebook!  I will check in with you all throughout the week to see how things are progressing (too slow/too fast, etc).  

I am so happy you are joining me on this.  Please know this is my first time hosting a crochet along and my first granny square afghan.  We may hit a few bumps along the way but I look forward to this being good!  Now, let’s grab a beverage, sit down and get started {you can pretend we are all chatting in cozy chairs at some totally groovy coffee shop, I totally am!}

I prefer to work my grannies in more of an assembly line.  You can choose to do them however you’d like but I’ll be doing mine a one round per week.  You may prefer to do your grannies start to finish, one at a time (you’ll need to complete about 11-12 a week)  {sidenote:  I love working them in groups so I have a handful at some stage or another {truly for no other reason than they look pretty all stacked up!} but being my first time it was confusing to figure a good schedule and keeping the week’s work pretty even throughout.  Maybe the next one we’ll do this way!  Again, if you prefer you could do it this way.}  Bottom line you want your granny to grow a round a week so if you want to do half your group at a time you’ll work 44 grannies and do twice as many rounds per week and start over with your next group of grannies half way through.  Confused yet???   I shouldn’t type my thoughts out loud I confuse myself!  

Back to what I was saying…we will do one round per week.  The first week we are going to work through Round 2 on as many as possible.  Whatever we don’t finish will carry over to week 2 and so on.  This predictable schedule makes it easy enough to catch up if you fall behind on a busy week or go ahead if you have more time one week than another.  We will check in once a week, if you blog I'll post an area here to link up.  If not we can post on Flikr, Facebook or whatever idea you may have.  Let me know your thoughts on this.

Oh and did I mention we are doing the Sunburst Granny??

{pics found via pinterest you can find original credits and links on this blog}

isn't she purdy!

Week 1:

 Download the pattern.  Gather your supplies.  Before getting started I recommend making 1 granny from start to finish.  Check your gauge!  {trust me on this, I have no clue what I was thinking and checked it after about 40 circles...yeah WAY TOO TINY}  The finished granny also serves as a good reference for color changes and such.

You are going to need yarn….lots of yarn!  You may choose to use all stash yarn or go out and buy all coordinating or your colors of choice.  If I have done my math right (and I like to think I have) this project will take just under 3,000 yards…YES INSANE RIGHT!?!?  NOT including the yarn for joining {because I honestly have no clue how much that will take}.  My practice granny took about 35 yards.

Week 1:  make 88 grannies through Round 2

Week 2:  work all through Round 3

Week 3:  work all through Round 4

Week 4:  work all through Round 5

Week 5:  work all through Round 6

Week 6:  work all through Round 7

Week 7:   Round 8 & 9 dependent on size
Weeks 8-9:  finish any squares not complete and join

Now go get busy!!!  You have 88 circles through round 2 to complete!  Please leave any questions or feedback in the comments here and I'll get back with you!