Granny Square Sudoku

I’ve been working on a baby blanket with (awesomely) themed squares scattered throughout it.

Some of the squares that give this WIP its character.

I’ve finally reached the point of connecting all the squares to form the blanket. As I was laying all the squares out and trying different arrangements it felt oddly familiar. I’d think “Eureka! This is it.”, step back to take a look, see two green rimmed squares next to each other (or some other visual faux paus), move things around and repeat the process all over again.

For example there was this…..

Then this…

…and this.

So similar, yet so different.

Trying to find the “right” arrangement of these babies was like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. I’d move one square that looked out of place and end up having to shuffle the whole row then the next and the next. It reminded me of the first couple times I tried to solve a Sudoku puzzle. I’d put a number in one box just to realize that I then had to change all the numbers that I thought were right in that row and then each of the boxes that the row was a part of had to be changed as well. It was a rolling wave of number changing confusion…until I saw the pattern.

Putting together a “random” granny square blankets is like that. The layout changes and morphs from one subtly different form to another. After a bit you just pick something and go with it. Usually it starts to look like the “right” set up after a bit. Of course this one had to be different and a little tricky. After connecting all the rows and columns I realized that, for the sake of symmetry, this blanket needed one more row of five squares across the top.

At least when those are finished arrangement options will be much more limited. In fact, I may even make the five squares with a plan in mind. That would be something new & different.