Yesterday when I had gotten done some of the things that needed doing, I settled in with my 4.0 mm hook and a pile of yarn and prepared to make granny squares. But before I was able to make any progress, I got it into my head to consult one of my many crochet books and read the directions for how to make a granny square.

After looking over my options, I settled on America’s Crochet Book by Gertrude Taylor. I selected her book from all the others on my shelf because my recollection was that she had very particular ideas about crochet (all left-handers, she asserts, should learn to crochet right handed) and I figured that the directions would be straight forward and without a whole lot of room for alternate interpretations.

I was not disappointed, and after six rounds, here is what I had:

As I was working on the square, I noticed that it seemed very tidy (and firm) as compared to the granny squares I have crocheted, and at my mother’s suggestion, I decided to do a bit of test run on different sets of directions to see what the variations looked and felt like.

After looking over the options on my bookcase, I settled on America’s Crochet Book by Gertrude Taylor, The Adventurous Crocheter by Delia Brock and Lorraine Bodger, The Woman’s Day Book of Granny Squares and Carry-Along Crochet, and Crochet Workshop by James Walters.

Using a 5.0 mm hook and drawing from my vast yarn stash, here are the books with the resulting squares:

and here is an overview of them:

The variations included the number of chains per corner (the directions I used had either one or two chains per corner, and if I had not been pressed for time, I would have included a third that had three chains per corner), as well as whether the “shell” part of the stitch was composed of the traditional 3 double crochet or a rather irreverent 2 double crochet, and lastly whether or not the shells were worked with or without a chain-one in between them.

When all was said and done, I was surprised to find that I liked the chain-one corner a lot better than I thought I would, and that while I have an appreciation for what the chain-one between shells does for the overall square, I found that omitting that chain-one had the effect of creating a more stable fabric — a feature I think would benefit any purses I might try to make.

So the next time you pick up your hook to make a granny square, grab the nearest stitch dictionary or peruse the online offerings to see if there is something that you haven’t tired yet. You just might like what you find.