Nautical Afghan February 2014

I just finished this nautical themed afghan to match the nursery my sister is decorating for her soon-to-arrive baby boy! I designed it myself, with a little inspiration from Pinterest, and figured out how do do all the squares. I've tried to provide instructions for the design below, but I'm not sure I've used all the right terms. If something is confusing, leave a comment, and I'll try to explain better.

PICTURE SQUARES:

Honestly, I'm not sure I know how to pick up and drop colors correctly, but the way I did this one was to single crochet around the yarns I wasn't using so that the yarn got carried along inside the stitch. You can see in the pictures below how this led to other colors peeking through. But in the end, I really didn't mind because it gave the pictures sort of a rustic look that I thought worked. You may want to have a cleaner look and may have a better way to pick up and drop the colors, so I'll just provide the charts I designed below and you can do them however you'd like.

Here's the method I used for each square: After chaining 30, I did 30 rows of 30 sc, changing colors as indicated in the patterns below. I had a tendency to make these a little too tight, so you may want to keep your stitches loose if possible so they will line up with the other squares better. After each row, I turned the square and went back the other way. I had no designated front or back; both the front and back should end up looking the same. For the anchor, compass, and life preserver, turning won't affect the way you follow the pattern, but for the sail boat, you need to remember to follow the pattern backwards every time you are working in the opposite direction. As you can see from my picture above, my sailboat squares don't match exactly because I let myself get confused at one point. If you were to work only from one side rather than turning, I expect the lines in the pictures would look cleaner, but I kind of like the look of the rougher edges.

I had a really hard time figuring out how to upload my graph from Excel onto this blog---I guess I'm slightly technologically challenged---so I finally just took a photo of my computer screen so you could see the grid for the picture squares. Sorry it looks so weird. Each grid square represents one single crochet stitch.

ROPE SQUARE (all white):

Ch 30.

Row 1: Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 29 dc.

Row 2: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), skip next two stitches, 2 dc, (fpdc in two skipped stitches, 2 dc, skip next two stitches, 2 dc) 4 times, fpdc in two skipped stitches, 1 dc.

Row 3: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), (4 bpdc, 2 dc) 4 times, 4 bpdc, 1 dc.*

Rows 4-19: Alternate repeating rows 2 and 3.

*Please note that the instructions for row 3 were modified as of 10/27/14. I'm sorry to all those who read the instructions before that and were confused.

WAVE SQUARE (light blue & navy):

With light blue, ch 30.

Row 1 (light blue): Ch 1 (counts as first slip stitch), sc, hdc, dc, 2 tc, dc, hdc, sc, 2 sl st, sc, hdc, dc, 2 tc, dc, hdc, sc, 2 sl st, sc, hdc, dc, 2 tc, dc, hdc, sc, sl st.

Row 2 (navy): Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 4 dc, (ch 2, 10 dc) twice, ch 2, 5 dc.

Rows 3-12 (alternate between light blue and navy): Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 3 dc, *(dc, ch 2, dc) in ch 2 space, 3 dc, (skip next stitch, dc) twice, dc 3* - repeat from * - (dc, ch 2, dc) in ch 2 space, 4 dc.

Row 13 (light blue): Ch 4 (counts as tc), dc, hdc, sc, 2 sl st, sc, hdc, dc, 2 tc, dc, hdc, sc, 2 sl st, sc, hdc, dc, 2 tc, dc, hdc, sc, 2 sl st, sc, hdc, dc, tc

STRIPE SQUARE (red, white, navy):

With red, ch 30.

Row 1-15 (alternating between red, white, and navy): dc 30 (try to keep these tight---this square has a tendency to come out larger than the others, even though it should be the same).

SQUARES SQUARE (navy, red, white, light blue):

Make one square in each color using the following instructions:

Ch 4. Join with slip stitch.

Round 1: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 2 dc, (ch 2, 3 dc) 3 times, ch 2 and join with sl st to first ch 3 dc.

Round 2: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 2 dc, (2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space, 3 dc) 3 times, 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space, join with slip stitch to first ch 3 dc.

Round 3: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), 6 dc, (2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space, 7 dc) 3 times, 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space, join with slip stitch to first ch 3 dc.

Join squares together using a slip stitch or whip stitch.

JOINING

Join all squares using a single crochet stitch. Each edge of each square should be attached to the edge of another square with 30 sc. After working your way across, you should have 150 sc on each horizontal line and 180 sc on each vertical line.You may have to make adjustments on the vertical edges to make this work out, but I've tried to recall how I did it below.

Horizontal:

The horizontal edge of every square should have 30 stitches (for the squares squares, count each ch 2 space as 2 stitches), so you should be able to easily sc in each stitch, regardless of which type of square you're using.

Vertical:

Vertical is a little harder because each of the squares is different. I will try to advise the best I can.

The picture squares should have 30 rows, so you should be able to put one sc in each row.

The squares squares should be easy too if you put one sc in each stitch and 2 sc in each ch 2 space.

The stripe squares have 15 rows, so you should attach 2 sc to each row.

For the wave squares, put 1 sc in the first row, 3 sc in each of the navy rows, 2 sc in each of the light blue rows (except the first and last), and 1 sc in the last row.

I actually can't remember how I did the rope squares, but I think it there were approximately 18 apparent spaces to put the single crochets and I put 5 sc in every 3 spaces (2 sc, 2 sc, 1 sc). You'll just have to count it up on that one and see what works for you to get to 30 evenly spaced sc.

BORDER

Round 1: Join navy with slip stitch to bottom right corner. Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 179 dc along right vertical edge of afghan. Ch 2. 150 dc along top edge of afghan. Ch 2. 180 dc along left edge of afghan. Ch 2. 150 dc along bottom edge of afghan. Ch 2. Join with sl st to first ch 3 dc.

Round 2: Drop navy and pick up white. Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 179 dc along right vertical edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 150 dc along top edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 180 dc along left edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 150 dc along bottom edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. Join with sl st to first ch 3 dc.

Round 3: Drop white and pick up red. Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 183 dc along right vertical edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 154 dc along top edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 184 dc along left edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 154 dc along bottom edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. Join with sl st to first ch 3 dc.

Round 4: Drop red and pick up light blue. Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 187 dc along right vertical edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 158 dc along top edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 188 dc along left edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. 158 dc along bottom edge of afghan. 2 dc in ch 2 space, ch 2, 2 dc in ch 2 space. Join with sl st to first ch 3 dc. Tie off.