One of the first orders of crochet business that I attended to yesterday was figuring out how the fifth round of the granny square for the iconic Roseanne sofa afghan was crocheted.

When I first looked at the afghan, I had only given the fifth round a cursory look; I had not really studied it, and a granny square afghan is such an iconic piece of crochet, it can be easy to think that once you have identified it as “a granny square afghan,” your work is done, but as with most things in life, the devil is in the details, and one thing that hampered my ability to figure out those details were the fact that the fifth and final round of the square is crocheted in black, (a yarn color for which it is notoriously difficult to see one’s stitches — and it gets notorious-ier and notorious-ier the older you get).

But when I studied the available photos more carefully, I noticed two things. One, there a stitch seemed to be worked into each double crochet of the fourth round. Two, there was a stitch worked around the chain-one that separated each 3 dc granny shell of the fourth round.

So, without being able to work from a more detailed photo that would better elucidate the particulars of the stitches that were used, I came up with my best guess, and (because I wanted my readers to be able to see what I had done), I worked the fifth round using Red Heart Super Saver corn meal, a worsted weight, light neutral that was both within arm’s reach and produced stitches that were easy to see.

In short order, I had the fifth round done:

and while I am not 100% certain I got all of the details right, I am 100% certain that if you work the fifth round in black as was done in the original, no one will ever be the wiser. (And if you are itching to get started, here is a text only crochet pattern you can work from)

With the details of the fifth round worked out, I decided to work on a fourth square, because while I am not sure that I am totally committed to cornmeal as my neutral, I am now committed to making a granny square afghan in this style. On this, the shortest day of the year, I not only managed to finish the first four rounds of this fourth square:

I also got the fifth round done on a total of three granny squares:

There is a lot to be done between now and the reboot. There are many stitches to be crocheted, many ends to be woven in, and, no doubt, a lot of time spent wondering if I have picked the right neutral after all. In the meantime I will move forward, one stitch at a time.

Related posts: Roseanne Reboot Granny Square free crochet pattern