Making of the 2021 C2C Plant Afghan Squares Blanket Divine Debris

[Image description] The finished C2C Plants Afghan Squares blanket lays flat on a cement background with 12 other colorful squares to make a 6 x 4 blanket.

2021 C2C Plant Afghan Squares CAL

What a fun and exciting CAL we’ve had, right? About this time last year I decided on the theme for this CAL, plants. I kicked off the year with the Cactus Square (a visual metaphor for sticking it out in the toughest of times, ya know?) and it was a great start. Each month I added a simple plant square, some more detailed than others, and watched my blanket form and I grew more excited to see it finish. And you want to know a secret? I really didn’t plan the squares very far in advance.
I’m sure long-time followers know this but I honestly do not play very far in advance for most things. I’m a “loose structure” kind of lady and these squares really typified that existence for me. At the beginning of the month I usually started to plan that month’s square and by the 2nd week the sample and the graph were done but that left me doing the same thing the next month, feeling a little panicky when my graphs didn’t look as good as I wanted them was kind common for me. But I feel very fortunate that they did usually work out, with some adjustments, and when laid them out with the whole group they looked nice and made sense. Honestly, who can even tell I was just winging it most of the year? 😀

And a special thank you to Lion Brand Yarn for sponsoring this project. I used Vanna’s Choice for this CAL and it’s been fabulous and has been one of my favorite worsted weight yarns for a long time.

You can find all 12 of the C2C Plant Afghan Squares free here.

But the 2020 C2C Coffee Square Afghan ebook on Ravelry

Square Arrangement

Unlike last year’s blanket, this year doesn’t really take a lot of work to arrange. The 12 squares are all 12″ x 12″ so I had the choice to either make the blanket 48″ x 36″ or add more squares to make it larger, and I opted for the latter. In all I used scraps from the previous squares to make 12 more 12″ x 12″ squares. Some are half and half and some are stripes but they’re all the same dimensions as the previous squares and below is a simple graph to follow for the half and half squares. Then I arranged them in a 6 x 4 checkerboard, because I really like that (used it in 2019’s Coffee Blanket too). But feel free to make doubles of the squares you liked the most, or add blanket squares as you’d like. It’s all about fun, in my opinion.

[Image description] Half and Half square graph

C2C Seaming

I used the same technique for seaming on this blanket as I did on my Concentric Squares Throw and last year’s C2C Coffee Blanket . This is a very simple technique, here’s a photo tutorial that hopefully help.

For the first square you will create a border that subsequent squares are joined to: with the RS facing you, create a slipknot on your hook (this will make your first sc a standing st, if you’d rather pull up a loop and ch 1 to create your sc you can), sc into the first st on the corner (this can be a ch-3 space or a dc), [ch 3 and skip the next block,*sc into the space between the blocks, ch 3 and skip the next block,* repeat from * to * across until you get to the last block, sc into the last st of the block, ch 3, sc into the same st as the last sc,] repeat from [ to ] twice more, ch 3 and skip the next block, *sc into the space between the block, ch 3 and skip the next block,* repeat from * to * across until you get to the last block, sc into the last st of the block, ch 3 and slip st into the first st. Fasten off, weave in your ends and block your square if desired.
For the 2nd afghan square and on: with the RS facing you line up the new square with the square or squares you want to join it to. Repeat the instructions for the first square until you get to the edge or edges where you want to join your squares.
Starting at the corner: sc into the last st of the block, ch 1, slip st into the corner ch-3 of the square you’re joining to, ch 1, sc into the same st as the last sc, *ch 1, slip st into the next ch-3 of the square you’re joining to, ch 1, skip the next block, sc into the space between the blocks,* repeat from * to * the rest of the way down the side. If you’re joining multiple squares, repeat the corner and side instructions until you get back to your first st, join with a slip st.