The Granny Square Afghan Sampler featured in the Better Homes and Gardens Crocheting and Knitting is more freeform than the directions would lead you to believe. A close examination of the available photos shows that the squares are not joined using a whipstitch as described in the directions, but instead many of the squares are joined using a technique in which a sc is used to join one square to another between the groups of three double crochet. This came to my attention today while I was trying to sort through the discrepancies between the directions I was reading the the result pictured.

In the previous episode, I detailed my attempts to make an E-2 square that adhered reasonably closely to to the pattern, but better fitted the D-2 square. To accomplish that, I added an additional round of sc.

The E-3 square presented other problems. The first three rounds matched the directions, but the directions for the 4th round did not match the photograph, so I did the following.

Round 4: *(3 dc in any ch-1 sp, ch1), repeat from *11 times. Join with sl st to first dc.

Round 5: Between any 3dc, *(3dc, ch3, 3dc), 3dc between next group of 3dc, twice; repeat from *3 times more, join with sl st to first dc.

Round 6: In any corner [(sc, ch3, sc) *(sc in next 3dc, sc between 3dc groups), repeat twice more] repeat 3 times.

Round 7: In any 3-ch corner [(3dc, ch 3, 3dc), *(sk next two st, 3dc in next stitch) repeat from *4 times more] repeat 3 times, join with sl st.

The result was an E-3 square that fit nicely next to the E-2 and looked more like the square that was pictured.

Here is the result:

Three squares down, 36 to go.