Crocheting Mitered Squares

I started on the knitted throw (baby blanket size) made with organic cotton over the weekend, but encountered a sudden lack of desire to knit. Instead, I read a lot and did a little crochet project.

Someone had asked me on Facebook, in the comments on the finished mitered square blanket project, whether it could be possible to get the same effect with crochet. I have crocheted a lot of squares in my day, but never mitered squares, so I messed around with my yarn and the lovely crochet hook I always carry in my knitting basket. The results do, I think convey the same effect.

Two squares of mitered crochet.

If you are interested in how I did the ones in the picture, building the squares from the outside in so that you can build each square on the next, and how I’d go on to complete a larger project in crochet, here are abbreviated instructions.

Crochet Mitered Squares

Use this technique to make mitered squares with self-striping yarn. You can change colors as you wish if you choose to make your own stripes.

First Square
Ch 42 (last two chains count as first sc in next row).
Sc in third chain and next 18 sts, skip 2 chains, sc 19. Ch 2, turn.
Sc 17, skip 2 sc, sc 18. Ch 2 (counts as first sc in next row), turn.
Sc 16, skip 2 sc, sc 17. Ch 2 (counts as first sc in next row), turn.
Sc 15, skip 2 sc, sc 16. Ch 2 (counts as first sc in next row), turn.
Repeat this pattern, with one fewer sc on each side of the skipped sts until the last row:
Skip 2 sc, sc, fasten off if changing colors.

Remaining Squares on First Row
From where you ended off with first square, ch2, pick up 19 sts across edge of previous square, ch 22.
Complete square as with first.

First Square, Second and Subsequent Rows
Chain 20, 20 sc in top of first sqare on previous row. Complete as with first row squares.

All Other Squares
Attach yarn where previous square ended. Chain 2, ch2, sc 18 sts across edge of previous square, skip two sc, sc 19 across top of next square in the row below.

Make a square or rectangle as large as you want, combining colors however you’d like. It’s easy to mimic quilt patterns, for example, using these squares.

More Resources for Your Perusal

There are plenty of ways to make mitered squares in crochet. I found some that you might want to use to make up your own blanket or other project. Just substitute a self-striping yarn to get the kind of effect in my sample. My taste would run to using thinner yarn and smaller hooks to get a more blended effect. Leftover sock yarn can be crocheted as wel as knitted, you know! It would make a nice sturdy vest fabric in crochet.

• A way to make them starting from one corner and making larger and larger rows.
• One very similar to what I made, but with nicer photos.
• Soemone did some interesting variants on the square linked above. 
• A commercial pattern from Bernat. It has solid squares, which shows how the texture can also be interesting.
• A tawashi (Japanese scrubbie to be made in a sturdy acrylic). It sould be good practice. 
• And now, for the most wonderful example, check out this beautiful shawl!! It’s the same technique, just with varied square sizes.