The colours used in this Midnight Garden Blanket project are a range of bright colours (pinks and greens) with a midnight blue (dark blue) as the main colour that surrounds the bright colours. The contrast between the dark blue representing a night sky, and bright colours representing flowers and foliage, creates a sense of mystery and intrigue, like a secret garden at night.

The Midnight Garden Square pattern is based on the traditional Granny Square, but with a few tweaks to give it more contemporary and modern feel. The traditional Granny Square uses groups of treble crochet stitches to form ‘treble clusters’. The Midnight Garden Square replaces the treble cluster with a group of 2 half treble stitches instead. The result is that the blanket has a lovely drape and feels less rigid than a traditional Granny Square made with treble clusters.

Materials

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For my sample blanket I used Stylecraft Special DK 100% Acrylic yarn in 7 colours, using 50g/295m of each colour, except for midnight where 700g/590m was needed. You can purchase this yarn here.

Abbreviations/Crochet terminology:

UK terms are used throughout. 

ss         slip stitch

Htr         half treble crochet

ch        chain

beg-ch beginning chain

*to*     instructions between asterisks will be repeated as specified

Stitch Guide/Conversion Guide

Overview of the Midnight Garden Blanket Pattern:

The Midnight Garden Blanket is made by joining 121 of the Midnight Garden squares together. Each square is made up of 7 rounds in total, but the squares are all worked up until it has 6 rounds and then all the squares are joined together using the join-as-you-go joining method whilst working the 7th round, which will be Midnight (main colour). If you do not want to use the join-as-you-go joining method whilst working the final round of each square, you have the option of working a seventh round on each square and then sewing the completed squares together at the end.

***For this pattern, only one of the squares has a different colour for each of the seven rounds (the central square – square A). The rest of the 120 squares have at least two rounds of the main colour (Midnight) for the outer rounds – this means that it is not necessary to fasten off the yarn. Instead you can turn the square over and slip stitch back into the corner space where you closed the round, then chain 2 (which counts as the first Htr).

Basic Midnight Garden Square – Written Instructions (video tutorial can be found here)

Foundation Ch4, join with ss in first ch to form a ring (alternatively you can use a magic ring).

Round 1 Continue with same yarn colour, ch2 (counts as first htr), 1htr in ring, (ch2, 2htr) 3 times, ch2, join with ss in 2^nd ch of beg-ch.  Fasten off.

[4 groups of 2htr]

Round 2 Turn work over.  Pull up a loop in any ch2 corner space.  Ch2 (counts as first htr), 1htr into same space, *(2htr, ch2, 2htr) in the next ch2 corner space*, repeat from *to* twice more, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. Fasten off (***if the subsequent round is the same colour then do not fasten off, simply turn the square over, slip stitch back into the chain 2 space just formed and then continue with the instructions below).

[8 groups of 2htr]

Round 3 Turn work over.  Pull up a loop in any ch2 corner space. Ch2 (counts as first htr), 1htr into same space, *2htr in space formed between the half-treble clusters from round 2, (2htr, ch2, 2htr) in next ch2 corner space*, repeat from *to* twice more, 2htr in space formed between the half-treble clusters from round 2, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. Fasten off***.

[12 groups of 2htr]

Round 4 Turn work over.  Pull up a loop in any ch2 corner space. Ch2 (counts as first htr). 1htr into same space, *2htr in next two spaces formed between the half-treble clusters from round 3, (2htr, ch2, 2htr) in next ch2 corner space*, repeat from *to* twice more, 2htr in the next two spaces formed between the half-treble clusters from round 3, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. Fasten off***.

[16 groups of 2htr]

Round 5 Turn work over.  Pull up a loop in any ch2 corner space, ch2 (counts as first htr), 1htr into same space, *2htr in each space formed between the half-treble clusters from the previous round, (2htr, ch2, 2htr) in next ch2 corner space*, repeat from *to* twice more, work along the final side with 2htr in each space formed between the half-treble clusters from the previous round, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. Fasten off***.

[20 groups of 2htr]

Round 6 –  Repeat as for round 5

Round 7 – Repeat as for round 5 but join to the adjacent square using the join-as-you-go method (this method is shown here with traditional Granny Squares but can be adapted to this pattern). Use Midnight (MI) (main colour) colour for all squares.

Video tutorial can be found here

Square A

The central square is Square A and there is only 1 of these – each of the seven rounds is a different colour. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go joining method)

Squares B1-B8

There are 8 ‘B’ squares to make. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go method of joining)

The colour order for each square is:

Squares C1-C16

There are 16 ‘C’ squares to make. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go method of joining)

Squares D1-D24

There are 24 ‘D’ squares to make. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go method of joining)

Squares E1-E32

There are 32 ‘E’ squares to make. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go method of joining)

Squares F1-F40

There are 40 ‘F’ squares to make. Make up the first 6 rounds (unless not using the join-as-you-go method of joining). Rounds 2-6 are with Midnight (main colour).

Arrangement of the Squares

Start in the middle with Square A. Arrange the B squares around Square A as described below.

`Joining the Squares

Join the squares together using the join-as-you-go joining method using Midnight colour yarn whilst adding the 7th round to each square. You can find a photo tutorial for the join-as-you-go joining method here.

Border

To finish off the blanket, a simple border is added as follows:

1. Using Midnight (main colour) pull up a loop in any corner space, ch2 (counts as 1htr), 1htr in the same corner space
2. *Work along the side of the blanket with 2htr in each space formed between the half-treble clusters from the squares below, (2htr, ch2, 2htr) in the ch2 corner space*,
3. Repeat from *to* twice more,
4. Work along the final side with 2htr in each space formed between the half-treble clusters from the previous round, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. 
5. Turn the work, ss back into the corner space just worked
6. Ch2 (counts as 1htr), 1htr in same corner space
7. **Work along the side of the blanket with 1htr in each STITCH, in the corner work (2htr, ch2, 2htr) in the ch2 corner space**,
8. Repeat from **to** twice more
9. Work along the final side with 1htr in each STITCH along to the corner, 2htr in corner space where you started, ch2, ss into 2^nd ch of beg-ch. 
10. Fasten off***.