The square as printed in Prairie Farmer, April 4, 1885, designed by a Mrs. Phelps; the magazine gave no first name. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The granny square
What it took directly
- documentedThe granny square comes from Mrs. Phelps's "Crazy Afghan" pattern, Prairie Farmer, April 4, 1885"The Crazy Afghan pattern, published in Prairie Farmer magazine on April 4, 1885, was designed by a Mrs. Phelps (no first name given)." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023)
- documentedMrs. Phelps's Crazy Afghan took from the crazy-quilt square: bright sections inside a black border"Unlike with later published variants, the author explained her design inspiration: a crazy quilt square, with brightly colored sections and a black border." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023), reporting what Mrs. Phelps wrote in 1885
- documentedThe standard granny square comes from Eva Marie Niles's version in The Boston Globe, March 4, 1888"On March 4, 1888, Eva Marie Niles published a version in The Boston Globe that was slightly larger and had the border we are all familiar with today. That would become the definitive pattern." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023)
- documentedThe name "granny square" comes from a 1953 North Carolina classified ad, the earliest use found so far"The earliest use of “granny square” found to date was in the November 24, 1953, edition of The Daily Times-News from Burlington, North Carolina." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023)
- documentedThe granny square on the red carpet took from Romance Was Born's granny-inspired dress for Cate Blanchett, 2010"In 2010, Cate Blanchett walked the red carpet in a granny-inspired dress for an opening at the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI). Designed by an Australian design team called Romance Was Born" Interweave (excerpt from Crochetscene 2014)
- documentedThe granny square on the runway took from Christopher Kane's fall 2011 show"British designer Christopher Kane dove deep into crochet granny square waters in his 2011 fall runway show" Interweave (excerpt from Crochetscene 2014)
What it learned to do
- documentedMrs. Phelps's afghan took from Germantown wool, a worsted yarn, when most crochet patterns still called for thread"Unusually, Mrs. Phelps recommended Germantown wool for the pattern, a worsted weight yarn. At the time, most crochet patterns used crochet thread rather than yarn." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023)
- documentedThe granny block learned from one colour rule: no two blocks alike"No two blocks should be alike, and the colors may be combined to suit the fancy." The Art of Crocheting (London: Butterick Publishing Co., 1891)
- documentedThe 1891 slumber-robe block took from odds and ends of colour left over from other crochet work"all the odds and ends of fancy colors left over from other crochet work" The Art of Crocheting (London: Butterick Publishing Co., 1891)
- documentedThe granny square learned from working in the round, from the centre out"Worked in the round, the traditional granny square starts at the center and then grows, round by round, until it ends up a square." Marsha Borden, PieceWork (March 2023)
- documentedJabez Ridgwell learned from someone nobody recorded"No one knows who taught Jabez Ridgwell to crochet granny squares." PieceWork, citing Mimi Seyferth's research
- documentedQueen Victoria's crocheted scarves for Boer War veterans took from the granny square's double-crochet-and-chain construction"Queen Victoria (1819–1901) crocheted eight khaki-colored woolen scarves, using the double-crochet-and-chain-stitch construction characteristic of the granny square motif, to be awarded to selected veterans of the Boer War." Mimi Seyferth, quoted in PieceWork
- inferredThe granny square's spread in the Depression took from thrift: using up scrap yarn"No doubt, in the Depression era, patterns that allowed people to use scrap yarns to create a lively home decor item were very welcome." inferred — the Interweave author offers it as a guess ("No doubt") from a 1930 afghan pattern; no source documents why people made them then
The tradition it sits in
- documentedThe granny square comes from the craze for "crazy work" when the pattern appeared: crazy quilts, crazy pottery"When the “Crazy Afghan” pattern was published, the world was crazy for “crazy work,” like crazy quilts and crazy pottery. The pattern was a play on that trend." Nicole Gustas, PieceWork (October 2023)
- documentedThe afghan of joined squares comes from a tradition so American that Europe called it "American crochet""So strongly was this style of crochet identified with the United States that in Europe, say the book’s editors, it was called American crochet." The Woman's Day Book of Granny Squares (1975), quoted by Interweave
- inferredThe "granny" in granny square comes from granddaughters naming their grandmothers' afghans, perhaps"There is no definitive answer to why the granny square is called the granny square." inferred — Nicole Gustas guesses this in passing; Marsha Borden writes that nobody knows
Where the whole form comes from
- documentedThe crocheted yarn blanket comes from the mid-19th-century United States, not the colonies"We don’t see any knit or crocheted blankets in the colonies at all; they show up in the [United States] in the middle 19th century," Jay Templin, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, quoted by Nicole Gustas in PieceWork
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