Granny square poncho

Love the nonchalant, hands-in-pockets stance

This cutie in a mini trilby inspired me to crochet a poncho for my niece's fifth birthday a few months ago. I spotted her in a book I found on one of my trawls round the charity shops of Norwich:

I KNOW: nice gloves

Rather than buy matchy wool specially, I thought I'd go freestyle on the colourscheme and use up some of the odds and ends about to create an avalanche under my craft table. Another part of my cunning plan was that I had around 20 multicoloured granny squares that I'd made a couple of years back, just sitting on a shelf, waiting. This was their moment!

I just needed to crochet 22 more squares...

I felt a sense of satisfaction at this point

arrange them in the right shape...

Swapping the squares about to get good colours next to each other is fun

stitch them together...

It took ages sewing in all the loose ends

crochet an edging, add a couple of tassels – and voilà.

Pink tassels were my niece's idea, not mine, I hasten to add

The beauty of having a project like this on the go is that you can take it everywhere with you. For about a month, I had my bag of wool and crochet hook with me, ready to do a few rounds on my journey to and from work, on longer train journeys, in the park – you name it.

If you want to make the poncho yourself, you just need to master the granny square and then it's really just a matter of keeping going until you've made 42 of 'em. These are my favourite granny square instructions that I use to refresh my memory, from the Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches, Lyric, 1986.

And here's how to make the little girls' poncho, with further instructions here.

Don't forget to buy her a cute little trilby to wear with it!

Poncho pattern courtesy of The Book of Creative Crafts (Tigerlily, 1978).