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Hello Friends!
It has been SO long since I have added anything new to the Straight Hooked library of patterns, but I am delighted to finally share a new design with you today- and even better, it is a Forever Free pattern! My friend Debbie from Madame Stitch is hosting the 4th annual Granny Stitch Sampler Blanket Crochet-a-Long (CAL for short), and I am honored to be participating again this year. Throughout October, you can follow the 12 different square patterns on each participating designer’s blog to create your own Granny Stitch Sampler Blanket. Every pattern is available free on the blogs, but if you prefer to have all of the patterns in one PDF, you can purchase the pattern bundle and have access to all 12 patterns, plus joining and bordering directions right at your fingertips! If you would like to purchase the bundle, my affiliate link is below:
Many of you know that I lost my husband unexpectedly last year. You may also know that this beautiful website you are visiting right now was built by him. I have an irrational fear that I will somehow ruin his work by even logging into my site, and if something happens and I need to call someone in to help me, it will change what he made and I will lose another piece of him. But my irrational fears are not fair to you. I have several completed designs that I need to publish, and I’ve even designed an oversized throw blanket I intend to share as a CAL in the future. I just need to finally get over this “grief paralysis” as I call it. My definition of the term is ‘an inability to accomplish a task due to the heartache the mere thought of said task brings’.
I know that so many of you truly care about me and want an update on my life. If you are just here for the pattern, that is okay too. Just keep scrolling until you see graphics for the pattern. For the rest of you who want to ‘stay and chat a while’, here’s some updates:
I’m 14 months into this ride I didn’t have any desire to get on. Autumn was my husband’s favorite of all the seasons and it is here again, and he is missing it for the second time. I didn’t cook for over a year and survived on frozen meals. The good news is that frozen cuisine has come a long way in the last 10 years ago and it took me until a couple of weeks ago before I finally decided that I can’t eat that crap anymore. I’ve started cooking me food. I don’t like cooking for just myself. I don’t even eat that much (like seriously- I rarely even finish a microwave meal), so there is just SO much excess food. I hadn’t even adjusted my cooking from 3 of us to 2 after our daughter moved out and we always had leftovers for a couple of days. Now I have far too much left over. Thankfully I have a new next door neighbor who has a puppy the same size as Ruby Sue. They are always happy to either come over for dinner and puppy playtime or come get a container to take home so I don’t feel like I am wasting food. I just made sausage tortellini soup the other night and had so much that I needed to put aside some for my neighbor and a big tub for my daughter and her fiancé. And I still have some to last me a couple more days!
I joined a widows group on the internet, and they all had me pretty scared as the more seasoned widows continued to say that “the second year is worse”. Maybe once you’re a few more years into this unfortunate experience you do look back at it that way. But that first year is really tough, and reading over and over again (and I paraphrase for dramatic effect), “you think this year sucks? Just wait, sweetheart. Year 2 is gonna gut punch you even worse” really had me dreading each passing week as we got closer and closer to the anniversary. That whole 11th month felt strangely like being a child waiting for Christmas, as though achieving the badge of ‘surviving one year without my love’ was going to bring him back to me. I kept thinking it would be nice if this was just a 1 year trial period of widow, and at the end I could decide whether to continue and subscribe permanently or have him back. What’s that saying about wish in one hand? Yep, I got poo in the other hand for sure.
I do have to say that being 2 months into the second year, I can’t yet agree that this is worse than the first year. Some things are. Like knowing that the last time he and I did any activity on “this day in history”, it was 2 years ago. And the time between the last time we were together will continue to grow. That hurts a lot. But can I really say that this year is even worse than last year? No I can not. I have adjusted to my new normal. I wake up missing him, I miss him all day, I go to bed missing him. That’s just part of my routine now. A year ago I cried every single day. Now it’s much less predictable. Some days I cry a lot. Other times I go a few consecutive days without crying. (Today I am crying, mostly because I’m over here typing about my grief and that makes my face leak.)
I think mostly that the second year just feels a bit lonelier. Everyone else has returned to their normal routines. The phone calls and texts to see how I am doing come less and less frequently. Even those who were close to him have their own homes and families and life continued as life tends to do. Life continued here too, but my home has a silence to it that will never return to normal. I strongly do not recommend being the surviving spouse, although in the same breath I am so thankful to God that my love was spared this experience. My husband always told me that I was better suited to be the widow than he was, and now that I am living this nightmare, I agree with him. It’s hard to articulate the feeling of being glad that I am the widow while still despising that I am a widow.
My husband’s body may be gone, but his spirit is very much still here. He sends me signs on an almost daily basis, whether it be shapes in the clouds, lights flickering, a song playing, or actual treasures from Heaven. When he was alive, my husband loved to learn and master new topics. He would think of something on a whim, study it, learn it, practice it, and then get bored and move on to something new. That seems to be no different now. He will sometimes return to a former hello method, but he likes to keep changing it up on me. His most recent gift has been “heart rocks”. I found one last winter and then over the summer they started appearing in abundance. I haven’t even counted them, but I have enough to line my whole TV stand at this point. It does help me feel a bit less lonely, but oh how I miss his physical presence. I especially hate thinking about one of our inside jokes and giggling out loud, then realizing that nobody in the world will ever find that funny besides me.
Miss Ruby Sue Shih Poo continues to be a blessing. I knew from the moment that little Craigslist orphan landed in our laps that she was a gift to us directly from Jesus, but every day I am reminded of that. She makes me laugh every day with her quirky personality, and she must be walked no less than 6 times a day which keeps me moving my body. (It isn’t something I talk about much because I am so much more overwhelmed with missing my husband, but becoming a widow was not the only slap in the face I received in 2025. I also received an MS diagnosis in January after 15 years of knowing that the way my body felt was not normal). Although I deal with a lot of pain and some mobility challenges, I mostly forget about that whole chronic illness thing since it is the least of my concerns at this point. I’ve been living with it for so long and the only real difference is now I get medication to make some of my symptoms less annoying instead of suffering and wondering what it is. ) So exercising regularly is forced upon me with this little girl, but she is also very friendly and has forced me to socialize every day with the neighbors. I made a decision that I both love and regret by purchasing a “porch couch” this summer. It is really nice to be able to sit outside…. when I want to. The problem is that Ruby wants to sit on the porch couch every time we return home from a walk. As that meme from some years ago says, “ain’t nobody got time for that”.
Anyway… that was a lot of rambling. Thanks for bearing with me, and let’s get to that crochet pattern now.
What’s a Forever Free pattern?
Forever Free patterns are full-length crochet patterns that are available to view here on the Straight Hooked blog. I am able to provide these patterns at no cost to you by allowing ads to appear on your screen. I generate a very small amount of revenue for each ad (I’m talking fractions of a cent), but the more my guests see, stay and navigate around my site, the more those few cents per visitor add up. Of course I would make a much better wage if folks purchased the PDF, but I would rather share this design with you for very little money than for you not to have the opportunity to try this pattern.
Materials:
5mm crochet hook
120 yards worsted weight yarn (I used Lion Brand Mandala Ombre in Mantra)
Finishing Needle
Scissors
Stitch Markers
Abbreviations:
ch- chain
slst- slip stitch
stsc- stacked single crochet
dc- couple crochet
hdc- half double crochet
sp- space
st(s)- stitch(es)
sc- single crochet
htc- half treble crochet
tc- treble crochet
hdtc- half double treble crochet
dtc- double treble crochet
hdc3l- half double crochet in the 3rd loop
ws- wrong side facing you
Gauge:
9 dc x 4 rows= 2” square
Finished Size:
12” square
Notes:
This pattern is written in US terminology.
This pattern is worked in the round. Occasionally you will be working a round with the wrong side facing you, and this will be clearly marked in the pattern.
Chains within a round are counted as stitches.
Chains at the beginning of a round are not counted as stitches.
Parenthesis indicate all stitches will be placed in the same stitch or chain space.
The PDF includes progress photos to help assure you are on the right track.
Pattern Instructions:
Rnd1. ch4, slst to 1st ch, (stsc, dc 11 in ch4 loop), slst to stsc {12}
Rnd2. ch1, (3hdc in sp between stsc and next dc), *ch1, sk 2 sts, (3hdc in sp between sts)*, repeat from *to* 4 more times, ch1, sk 2 sts, slst to 1st st {24}
Rnd3. stsc in last ch sp from Rnd2, *ch1, sk 3 sts, (5dc in ch sp)*, repeat from *to* 4 more times, ch1, sk 3 sts, (4dc in ch1 sp, slst to stsc) {36}
Rnd4. slst to ch sp, (stsc, 2dc in ch sp), *sk 2 sts, 5dc, sk 2 sts, (3dc in ch sp)*, repeat from *to* 4 more times, sk 2 sts, 5dc, sk 2 sts, slst to stsc {48}
Rnd5. slst 1, (stsc, 2dc), *sk 3 sts, 5dc*, repeat from *to* 10 more times, sk 3 sts, 2dc, slst to stsc {60}
Rnd6. (stsc, 2dc), *sc in sp between clusters, (5dc in center st of cluster)*, repeat from *to* 10 more times, sc in sp between clusters, 2dc, slst to stc {72}
Rnd7. ch1, *sc, ch6, sk 5 sts*, repeat from *to* 11 more times, slst to 1st st {84}
Rnd8. ch1, *sc, 7sc in ch sp*, repeat from *to* 11 more times, slst to 1st st {96}
Rnd9. ch1, *sc, hdc 2, dc 2, htc 2, tc 2, hdtc 2,dtc, ch2, dtc, hdtc 2, tc 2, htc 2, dc 2, hdc 2, sc*, repeat from *to* 3 more times, slst to 1st st {104}
Rnd10. ch1, hdc 12, *(hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc 24*, repeat from *to* 2 more times, (hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc 12, reverse slst to 1st st {112}
Rnd11. ch1, hdc3l 13, *(hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc3l 26*, repeat from *to* 2 more times, (hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc3l 13, slst to 1st st {120}
Rnd12. ch1, hdc 14, *(hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc 28*, repeat from *to* 2 more times, (hdc, ch2, hdc), hdc 14, slst to 1st st {128}
Rnd13. (stsc between 1st and last sts from Rnd12, 2dc), *sk 3 sts, 3dc between sts*, repeat from *to* 3 more times, [sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 9 times], repeat from [ to ] 2 more times, sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 4 times, slst to stsc, turn {140}
ws Rnd14. (stsc, 2dc between clusters), *sk 3 sts, 3dc between clusters*, repeat from *to* 3 more times, [sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 10 times], repeat from [ to ] 2 more times, sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 5 more times, sk 3 sts, slst to stsc, turn {152}
Rnd15. (stsc, 2dc between clusters), *sk 3 sts, 3dc between clusters*, repeat from *to* 4 more times, [sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 11 times], repeat from [ to ] 2 more times, sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 5 more times, sk 3 sts, slst to stsc, turn {164}
ws Rnd16. (stsc, 2dc between clusters), *sk 3 sts, 3dc between clusters*, repeat from *to* 4 more times, [sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 12 times], repeat from [ to ] 2 more times, sk 3 sts, (3dc, ch2, 3dc), repeat from *to* 6 more times, sk 3 sts, slst to stsc, turn {176}
Rnd17. ch1, sc 22, *(sc, ch2, sc), sc 42*, repeat from *to* 2 more times, (sc, ch2, sc), sc 20, slst to 1st st, finish off and weave ends {184}
Note: depending on your gauge, you may not need Rnd16. If your square is already close to 12″ after completing Rnd15, sc around edge with ws facing you, placing (sc, ch2, sc) in each corner.
Thank you for sticking with me during this rough period of my life. I know that I have neglected you for about a year, and I hope to come out of this “grief paralysis” soon so I can bring you more crochet patterns. Be sure to sign up for the Straight Awesome newsletter. When I am ready to get back to Straight Hooked more regularly, those on my mailing list will be the first to know. And I’ll probably have some special subscribers only discounts and freebies too!
Until next time (whenever that may be),
Happy Hooking!
~Malena
