Starburst Granny Square

As you know when it comes to granny squares and crochet there are lots of granny squares to choose from. In this video I'm gonna show you how to make one of my absolute favorites and that is the starburst granny square. And you also sometimes see this one called the sunburst granny square. I really love this one because I just think it's so striking. We're gonna be making some puff stitches as well as some cluster stitches.

So we have basically this flower motif and then we're just going to work a little border that gives it that traditional granny square look. So I'm gonna work mine over four colors, but you can work yours however you like. I do encourage you to switch colors every round just because I think that's how you're really going to get that beautiful flower effect in this particular granny square. So to start, I'm gonna start with color A and for the one I'm gonna be demonstrating here I've decided to use my green this time. So we're gonna start with the magic ring.

You might also see this called a magic circle, adjustable loop, magic loop. It has all sorts of names and so I've wrapped the yarn around my two fingers. And so I have my tail hanging down here and my working yarn is up here. I'm gonna come under the tail and then over the working yarn, grab that working yarn, bring it through the loop and give it a twist. And so that puts a loop on my hook while also leaving this ring that I can work into.

So now that I've done that we're ready to start working into the ring. We're gonna start by working at chain three, one, two, three. And now we're gonna work 15 double crochets into the ring. So we're gonna yarn over and go into the center of the ring, yarn over and pull up a loop. We've got three loops on the hook to complete the double crochet, we're gonna yarn over, draw through two, yarn over, draw through two.

So that's our first double crochet. Now we're gonna add 14 more. Let's just double check and make sure we have the right number. So we have our beginning chain three and then we should have 15 more crochets. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and one more.

15. Now we're going to close our ring. We're just going to grab that tail from the beginning and give it a tug. And when we give it a tug what happens is we close that hole at the beginning. So we're down to almost nothing.

And you can pull this pretty tight. We have a lot of double crochet stitches here, but you can get that hole pretty tightly closed. Now we're just going to end this off by slip stitching into the third chain or top chain of the beginning chain three. So we're just gonna work a slip stitch right into the top of that beginning chain three and then we can fasten off. So I'm gonna trim my yarn and fasten off.

And we're done. We're done with row or round one. So we have the beginning circle here. So if we bring in our completed square you can see this is what we've just done right here is what we have here. So now we can go ahead and grab a color B or color two.

And I think I'm gonna go with the gray. So let's go with the gray. And we are going to be working puff stitches on this round. I'm gonna start with a loop of color B on my hook. And then just slip stitch anywhere you want to join.

So it doesn't really matter because we're just gonna be working around. So I insert my hook yarn over, draw through a loop and then draw through that loop to slip stitch to join. Now we are going to chain two, one, two and work a puff stitch into each stitch going around. So to do that, we're gonna yarn over, insert our hook yarn over, draw up a loop, yarn over, insert our hook yarn over, draw up a loop, yarn over insert our hook, yarn over, draw up a loop. And so we're left with something that looks like this.

And we have seven loops on the hook. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And now we're gonna yarn over and draw through all seven, just like that. Now that we've completed the first puff stitch we're gonna just go around and do a puff stitch into each double crochet stitch. So yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, draw a loop, yarn over, insert hook yarn over drop a loop and yarn over, insert hook yarn over drop a loop yarn over, draw through all loops.

And we're just gonna do that all the way around. As you're working these puff stitches you wanna try to keep these yarn overs a little bit loose. You wanna make sure you're pulling your hook all the way up every time you insert your hook. If you're not pulling your hook all the way up and just maybe leaving it here you're gonna end up with a really, really tight puff stitch. It's gonna be very hard to get your hook through all of those loops at the end to complete the puff.

So you just wanna make sure that your pulling your stitches all the way up as you go. Again, you're gonna wanna just bring it up so it's almost coming basically up to the height of your previous puff stitch. This is one of my absolute favorite stitches to do. It's so fun. I love that it's actually puffy.

I think it's so cute. Okay, just one more to go. All right, so let's count our puff stitches. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. And oh, we got one more to do.

One more puff stitch. Let's go ahead and work in this space. It's pretty obvious actually that we need one more. And there we go. And now we can just slip stitch to that beginning chain two to join our round of puff stitches and then we can fasten off our color B.

Now that we've done that, we're ready to join our color C, which I think I'll go with the yellow since this is gonna be our cluster stitches which are all along here. And so really if you are gonna make this look like a flower this would be the pedals would be this round three here. So let's go ahead and do our round three in the yellow and make it look a little bit like a sunflower. So we're gonna just do the same thing and start with a loop on our hook. And then we're going to join in between any of the puff stitches.

So we're just picking a puff stitch and working in between. And we're just joining with the slip stitch just like we did for those other other rounds when we were changing colors. So we're going to chain three and then we are going to work a cluster into the same exact space. And so to do that we're gonna yarn over, insert our hook, yarn over and pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. And we're gonna do that twice more.

What we're left here for this beginning one is four loops on the hook and then we're gonna yarn over and draw through all four. And so that made our little cluster and that made our little pedal. So now that we've done that cluster, we're gonna chain two, one, two and go into the next space in between the two puff stitches. So we're gonna yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, draw through two and we're gonna do that four times two, three and four. And then yarn over and pull through all five, chain two and keep working that all the way around back to the beginning.

And so now we have just one more cluster to go. So I'm just finishing off this last cluster. Two, three, four, five yarn over, pull through all five. And then we're gonna chain two and then slip stitch to the top of our beginning chain. And then that takes care of round number three.

Now all there's left to do is to finish this off. We're gonna take our circle and we're gonna turn it into a granny square. So I'm gonna finish off my color C here. You can see we have this like beautiful little flower. This is even pretty on its own.

If you wanted to use this into some type of project or even just use it as something like a coaster I think that could be really cute. But we're gonna go ahead and finish this off into an actual granny square. So I'm gonna use my pink here like I did on my finished one and we'll use that for our color D. So just like all the other rounds that we did we're gonna start our color D with a slip knot on the hook. So we have one loop on the hook and just pick any chain two space to join with a slip stitch.

So we'll yarn over, pull up a loop and then draw through to attach our yarn. So now we're ready to work our actual square. One thing I wanna point out is that many times in this particular granny square motif you might see where the corners are worked in treble crochets and then you go down to a double crochet and then a half double crochet and then you go back up to a double crochet and then your corners have the treble crochet stitches again. I personally don't love the way that looks and it could just be the way that I crochet or hold my hook. I just find my treble crochets in the corners just tend to be a little bit loose and they just don't look that neat and I don't like how they look that much.

So what I'm gonna do here and demonstrate for you is the way I like to finish off these granny squares, which is I am going to do the corners in double crochet then go down to half double crochet, single crochet then back up to half double and then double crochet in the corner again. So let me show you what I mean. So we've attached with our slip stitch, we're going to chain three, which is gonna count as a double crochet and then we'll put two more double crochets into that chain space, into that same chain space. Then we're gonna go to the next chain space and do three half double crochets, go to the next chain space and do three single crochets. Next spot, three half doubles.

And now we've come to what will be one of our corners. We're gonna put three double crochets into that chain space, chain three and put three more double crochets into that same chain space to make the corner. So that's a corner. So now we're gonna go half double crochet. We're gonna put three in the next chain space.

Three single crochets in the next chain space and then go to the next chain space and do three half doubles. So basically what we're doing on this final round is we have to change the height of our stitches in order to make it into a square because we're starting with a circle and now we're trying to make that circle into a square. And so in order to do that, we're changing the height of the stitches along each side to accommodate the fact that there's a circle at the center. Here I am again at the corner. And so I did three double crochets, chain three, three double crochets into that corner.

And now I'm just gonna keep working around until I'm back at the beginning. I'm in that last chain space and I'm doing three half double crochets. And now I'm back to the chain space that I started with. So we worked the first half of this corner when we started and so now we need to finish off the second half of this corner. So we're gonna put three double crochets into that chain space.

And that's the beginning chain space we started with. And then I'm just gonna chain three and slip stitch that chain to the be top or third chain of that beginning chain three. And that's it. Now we just need to fasten it off. And there you go.

We have this beautiful, beautiful granny square. This one is really, really great. It's one of those granny squares that's great for leftover yarns. You can stitch them together to make a blanket, you can make a vest, a sweater, anything you want. You can make beautiful projects out of any type of granny square.

But this one especially, I just think it's so stunning and I hope that you enjoy making it.