Denim style granny square afghan

When I first decided to learn to crochet, I purchased a large amount of Red Heart Comfort yarn from Wal-Mart. It's a great price at $9.99 for 16 oz, it's a very thick and sturdy yarn - it doesn't split very easily, and perfect for learning with.  It is coarse and rough, but it fitted my needs.

Go big or go home...I can't jump into something like a dishcloth to learn, I have to jump into something I want right away. To heck with knowing what I'm actually doing! Now later, I love little projects like wash cloths also ...and I am just as proud of them, but back to this story....

My first attempt was going to be a simple queen sized afghan using a dc 3 ch1 on one row, sc ch 3, on the next. It all was going great and I learned a few things. 

1. The length of the starting chain will not be the final width...things stretch...like used underwear.
2. As a beginner, it's REALLY REALLY easy to add extra stitches without realizing it...without realizing how really really too late it is. 

I never finished the blanket. It ended up wide enough for a King sized bed and was slowly expanding over each row! I had about 4 feet in length. So I cut my losses and now I have a funny sized 7 or so  foot X 4 foot blanket that is perfect for camping ;)

Now, a year or so later, I came across a pattern for DenimStyle afghan by Bernat.

What can be easier than Granny squares? Well single colour squares, but I figured this pattern would work up quick regardless, and it does.

The pattern calls for a 5.00 mm hook, so I used a 6mm. I'm a bit wild and crazy like that :)

I knew I was going to run out of dark brown, so I focused on making the squares that used the most brown first and then slowly built up adding across a row from there.  I ended up with a 3 X 5 large square pattern with each large square = between 10.5 to 11 inches square.

Unblocked DenimStyle afghan

The original pattern is 5 X 7 squares with each large square measuring 9"X9" (small ones 4.5"X4.5")

Throw: 45 x 63 ins [114.5 x 159.5 cm]     Pillow: 14 x 14 ins [35.5 x 35.5 cm]

Mine ended up being 32 X 53 inches on the inside. I then added a row of 2 tone granny's on the bottom and single colour granny's on the side, bordered by 1 row sc, 1 row hdc in tan, and then a row of hdc in the cream (COL:3132), which brought it out to be about 40 X 61 inches finished.

 

I chose not to weave in the ends and just did simple knots on the backside to keep things secure. I figure the blanket is perfect for camping and will hold up better to abuse that way, so I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it and it's a lot more useful like this than as a few large 16oz skeins in my closet.