Today I again focused my attention on figuring out how I would go about making a beach blanket to be given as a wedding gift.

Using a 5.5 mm hook and Red Heart Super Saver light coral I made a series of squares similar to the squares I made yesterday with the the Red Heart Super Saver lemon.

As with yesterday’s squares I used a chain-2 space in the corner, but unlike yesterday’s squares, I eliminated the chain-1 space between all of the other 3dc clusters.

The result was a somewhat smaller square with much less drape. When I began experimenting with various joining methods, it became clear to me that the “much less drape” feature which I had initially liked was going to cause problems with joining the pieces.

I wanted to avoid whipstitching, if possible, because of the amount of time required, and how awkward it can be to handle as the piece grows larger, so the first thing I tried was putting the right sides together and working a single crochet stitch a through both loops of both squares. The result was a needlessly and unattractively awkward join.

I removed that, and then tried another favorite of mine, a slip stitch worked through the back loop only. Again, while this joining has it’s place in the crocheter’s tool kit of techniques, it did not work for this particular project.

From there, I laid two squares side by side, and laced them together working through both loops of both squares. The resulting texture was interesting, but did not enhance the overall design of this particular project.

Desperate to figure out how I would join the pieces, I tried the only method left I could think of: join-as-you-go.

This is not my favorite joining method because you have to know ahead of time which square you want to put where, and once it is in place, there is no easy way to turn back, but be that as it may, nothing else had worked, so I gave it a try. Here is the result:

Happy with the relatively smooth edges of the resulting join, I decided to use this Fibonacci spiral as a guide:

to laying out and joining the granny square for the beach afghan-to-be:

Using a join-as-you-go method will create enough wiggle room that I should end up with a reasonably good fit despite the fact with granny squares (unlike graph paper), four 1×1 squares arranged in an array of 2×2 are not exactly the same size as one 2×2 granny square.

And if you are interested in seeing just how much one young woman can do with a pen, paper, and the Fibonacci sequence, I invite you to watch this video: