Lately I’ve been pretty much staying home as much as possible, I’m sure many of you are too.  I’m not complaining, but finding things to do is getting more difficult as the days and weeks go by.  After all I’ve been home since March!

I’ve been cooking, baking, canning, sewing, painting, drawing, and doing just about everything I can think of just to stay busy and productive; after I get all my “real” work done because I have also been working from home.  Anyway in the spring when the lock down began I made some crocheted turtles for my grandsons in Italy using some of the yarn in my “stash”.  Since then I’ve been looking for other crochet projects.

Recently I came across this free pattern from Crochet 365 Knit too.  The pattern is call Sunburst Granny Square, then she changed up the colors and made this cute Sunflower Granny Square, it’s amazing what a difference the color changes made!

The sunflower part of the pattern uses puff and bobble stitches worked in rounds.  Once the flower is complete it’s framed in a square making it a granny square.  The squares in the pattern were stitched together to make a really cute bag.  But I though how cute it would to join squares to make a small lap blanket or throw.

I made 36 Sunflower Granny Squares which I joined together using the Zipper method.  I joined 6 squares across and 6 down to use all 36 squares.  Then I crocheted 5 rounds of boarder using a combination of single  and double crochet rounds.

I used Red Heart Medium weight yarn in Coffee, Chamois, Goldrod, and White.  The first 3 colors were from my scrap yarn stash (which was a good thing because yarn seems to be hard to find recently, at least in my state of Hawaii).  The white used the most yarn, but I always have multiple skeins of white yarn.  If you don’t have these colors or simple can’t find any at the store, no worries, use whatever yarn colors you have on hand.  Keep in mind that sunflowers come in different shades of yellow!

The pattern I used for the Sunflower Granny Squares is by Crochet 365 Knit Too!  It’s free!  Click hear for the pattern. 

The Zipper method of joining squares is pretty easy once you get the hang of it.  Here’s a step-by-step on how to do it from Look What I Made.  

As for the border I wanted to keep it simple so I used a dc in every stitch after joining the squares.  In the corners I did 3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc.  The last DC was joined the to beginning DC.  Then I made 4 rounds of SC using 3 sc, ch 2, 3 sc in the corners.  If you prefer a different border you can use any style you want.

This cute lap blanket is perfect for those chilly autumn evenings!