Granny Square Flair: A book review

Shelly Husband is no stranger to the humble granny square. In fact, she’s something of a granny-meister (if such a thing were to exist).

Over the last few years, Shelley has taken this most traditional of crochet motifs and designed hundreds of beautiful versions – publishing them for free and in book collections. Her latest book, ‘Granny Square Flair’ is different in that not only is this her first ever print version, but all the designs are created using neutral, cream yarn. Shelly wanted her readers to be able to add their own colourways to their motifs and create truly personal projects. That said, her love of colour still pervades throughout, as she cleverly asked fellow crocheters to take a square and make it using yarns and colours of their choices. Which is how I became involved – but more on that later.

Shelley’s squares in cream

‘Granny Square Flair’ (written in US and UK terms) features 50 patterns, varying in difficulty and complexity and is intended for a crocheter with basic skills. The beginning of the book includes everything you need to know to get started; information on choosing hooks, yarns and colours, how to read patterns and charts and a brilliant tip for creating seamless crochet!

The next section contains the patterns. Each one has a difficulty rating and a guide to how much yarn it will use. There is a photograph of the square and a chart underneath (very helpful for the visual learners out there). Alongside are the written instructions, which are clearly described and easy to follow. At the bottom of the page are the coloured versions of the squares; either made by Shelley herself or by the  group of crochet friends she asked to help. These include Dedri Uys, Julie Harrison, Mandy O’Sullivan, Marianne Dekkers-Roos, Sandra Eng and many more – oh and me, too!

I chose the ‘Bloem’ pattern (p.64) to work on and decided straight away that I would supersize mine using Stylecraft Special XL in Cream, Duck Egg, Sage, Petrol and Graphite. And wowsers!! It worked out brilliantly! It would make THE perfect blanket and with squares this big, would be a pretty quick project too. I found the pattern easy to follow and had no difficulty understanding the instructions. It’s rather nice, isn’t it?!

‘Bloem’

After the patterns, you can find the project section, where Shelley has 11 new designs to make with the motifs. There are blankets and wraps, cushions and coasters – a great selection of stylish and modern pieces and there are tips and advice for designing your own projects, including how to choose patterns and layout and how to calculate the amount of yarn you will need.

Melbourne Wrap

Blues Sampler Blanket

And so, I would like to congratulate Shelley on a truly fabulous book – her fresh, modern designs will inspire many crocheters to make their own beautiful creations.