Well, we’ve done it again!

We have come together with Claire of Bear Rye Crochet and a bunch of other truly amazing and talented crochet designers to bring you another blanket Crochet-A-Long (or CAL for short), this time it is spring floral themed! (yay!- insert party emoji here)

Each day of this month, one of the participating designers is sharing their own take on a Spring-Themed blanket square. For the day that their square is featured, the PDF will be available for FREE. After that, the majority of us will also have the square available as a free pattern on our personal blogs. If you miss the free download day for our pattern, you can also purchase the inexpensive PDF from our Ravelry shop. This PDF also includes a stitch graph which may be helpful in completing this square.

And if you want a PDF of all the patterns, we have teamed up through Send Owl to offer a bundle package of all patterns featured for only $7!  Thats a $23 savings versus purchasing each square individually.  You can purchase that bundle here.  

I am especially excited for this CAL because Spring is my all time favorite season. Partially because of the weather, partially because of my birthday, but mostly because of all the new life and flowers it brings!When I was first asked to join in on this CAL, I was a bit hesitant in that I wasn’t as easily able to come up with a square idea that I liked as much as when I designed the Cozy Cables Square for the Winter Wondersquare CAL back in December.  But then after making the Bobbles Up Scarf, I knew I had to join in the fun making a square with colored bobbles.

After a few trial and errors, I came up with this Flower Bobble Square, and I love the end results! I can’t help but think of pansies or violets whenever I look at it, but you could certainly mix up the colors you use to give the feel of a different type of flower.

This square is relatively easy to make and works up quickly due largely in fact to the square being made predominately in double crochets. The only time in which double crochets are not used, is when the half bobble and bobble stitches are used in their place.

If you have never worked color work or bobble stitches before, I cannot recommend our video tutorial for the Bobbles Up Scarf enough (you can find that on our Youtube channel here, or located on this page). Although this pattern is slightly different, the basic idea is the same.

To work the bobble stitches in this pattern, you will be yarning over and pulling up a loop for a total of 7 times (whereas a typical bobble is just 5). While originally making this square, I didn’t think the standard bobble produced enough “pop” for a flower petal, so I increased it a bit for a more dramatic effect.

The half bobble will start out the same as the bobble stitch, but will only consist of a total of 3 yarn overs and pull ups. I tried doing just a simple double crochet for this color change, but again was unimpressed with the effect, and found this stitch to offer the perfect amount of pop.

While working each flower I would cut a long strand of my secondary color yarn and use one long strand per each flower, whereas, the third color; I carried throughout the work beneath the double crochet stitches while it was not in use. You may choose to cut this color and work it into each flower only, but my decision to carry it was simply to avoid more ends to weave in at the end.

It should also be noted that bobble stitches have a natural tendency to pop towards you as you make them and since the bobble stitches are worked into both the right and wrong side of this square, the stitches worked into the wrong side will need to be pushed towards the right side for a more noticeable bobble effect throughout.

Once all flowers are worked, you will complete the square with a final row of double crochets only and go back to weave in all the ends from the secondary color changes.

I also recommend wet blocking this square, as you’ll want it to be the exact 8X8″ panel needed to join to the other squares to create a blanket.

I really hope you enjoy making this square as much as I did! Even if you do not join along in making the whole Spring blanket, you could easily convert this (or any other square included in the bundle) to a kitchen hot pad by adding a simple 8X8″ double crochet backing.

Pattern

Foundation: starting in MC, ch 34

Row 1 [WS]: starting in the in the 4th ch from the hook, dc across, turn (31) 

Row 2 [RS]: ch 3, dc 3, Bobble St, dc 23, Bobble St, dc 3, turn (31) 

Row 3 [WS]: ch 3, dc 2, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 21, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 2, turn (31) 

Row 4 [RS]: ch 3, dc 3, Bobble St, dc 23, Bobble St, dc 3, turn (31) 

Row 5: ch 3, dc across, turn (31) 

Row 6: ch 3, dc 15, Bobble St, dc 15, turn (31) 

Row 7: ch 3, dc 14, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 14, turn (31)

Row 8: ch 3, dc 15, Bobble St, dc 15, turn (31) 

Row 9: ch 3, dc across, turn (31) 

Row 10: ch 3, dc 8, Bobble St, dc 13, Bobble St, dc 8, turn (31)

Row 11: ch 3, dc 7, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 11, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 7, turn (31)

 Row 12: ch 3, dc 8, Bobble St, dc 13, Bobble St, dc 8, turn (31)

Row 13: ch 3, dc across, turn (31) 

Row 14: ch 3, dc 15, Bobble St, dc 15, turn (31) 

Row 15: ch 3, dc 14, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 14, turn (31)

Row 16: ch 3, dc 15, Bobble St, dc 15, turn (31) 

Row 17: ch 3, dc across, turn (31) 

Row 18: ch 3, dc 3, Bobble St, dc 23, Bobble St, dc 3, turn (31) 

Row 19: ch 3, dc 2, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 21, Bobble St, Half Bobble St, Bobble St, dc 2, turn (31) 

Row 20: ch 3, dc 3, Bobble St, dc 23, Bobble St, dc 3, turn (31) 

Row 21: ch 3, dc across, fo (31) 

Weave in all ends and wet block for best results. 

Attach to your Spring themed blanket, or attach an 8×8″ double crochet square for a kitchen hot pad.

Enjoy!