How to Join Crochet Squares

Photo of pink and apricot small crochet granny squares laid out 2 x 2 on a white lace surface with a wooden crochet hook and a ball of olive green yarn. Text on the image reads: How to join crochet squares with a slip stitch seam. Banana Moon Studio.

Learn how to join crochet squares

There are actually many different ways to join crochet squares together. In this tutorial I will teach you how to join crochet squares with a slip stitch seam, one of the most simple, common, and traditional methods.

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for details.

What supplies do I need to join squares this way?

To start with, you need crochet squares, often called granny squares. If you are looking for a basic solid granny square, like the ones pictured above, you can find both video and written instructions for that here on my website.

Solid granny square written pattern.

Solid granny square video.

In addition to granny squares, you will need yarn that is the same thickness as that you used to crochet your squares. You will also need a crochet hook. My favorites are the Streamline resin hooks from Furls.

What stitches or techniques does this joining method use?

This method for joining crochet squares uses slip stitches. If you aren’t familiar with those, you can see a video for crochet slip stitches here.

You will be holding your squares together and slip stitching through both of them at the same time. Sometimes patterns refer to this as “working through both thicknesses.” I’ll show you how to do that in the video below, so no need to look elsewhere to learn about that.

So how DO you join crochet squares with slip stitches?

Here I’ll explain in words, though the video is below for a visual demonstration.

First, decide how you want to arrange your squares. Once you’ve decided that, begin with the two squares at the bottom of columns 1 and 2. Hold them with their right sides together and the two edges to be joined facing up.

Make a slip knot with your joining yarn and place it on your hook. Put your hook through the first two stitches or chains to be joined. You can go under both loops of each stitch, or you can go through just one loop of each stitch, the two closest to each other. You might try both methods and see which you like the look of better.

Wrap your yarn around your hook, that’s called a yarnover. Pull that loop through both stitches and the loop on your hook. That completes one slip stitch (sl st). Then go through the second stitch to be joined of both squares and sl st again. Continue this all the way across the two sides to be joined.

When you’ve completed all the stitches of those two squares, chain (ch) one. Pick up the next squares of columns 1 and 2 and hold them with right sides together and the two edges to be joined facing up and to the left of the squares already joined. Sl st across those two squares just as you did the first two.

Continue slip stitching together all the squares of columns 1 and 2 just as you have the others. When you have columns 1 and 2 all joined together, fasten off by cutting your yarn to leave a tail 4 to 6 inches long and pulling that tail all the way through your last sl st.

Next you will add the squares of column 3 in order by joining them to the squares of column 2 just as you did the first 2 columns.

Once all the columns are joined, you will join the rows by folding the squares of rows 1 and 2 together and slip stitching across with a ch 1 at every corner between squares.

Once you’ve joined all the rows and columns, you’ll want to put an edging on your piece, at least a simple round of single crochet (sc) to finish the edge nicely and hold everything together at the ends of your joins.

How do you join uneven crochet squares?

How do you join crochet squares that aren’t all the same size? Well, that’s going to take some figuring things out and maybe some additional edging of squares.

First, can you make the squares the same size by adding more rounds of edging to the smaller ones?

Another option would be to join smaller squares together to make them the same size as larger squares. Could you join four smaller squares to make the same size as your larger squares? Or maybe nine smaller squares? Or maybe joining several smaller squares would allow you to make a big square the same size as 4 larger squares joined together?

A last option would be to intentionally crochet some squares or rectangles that you could use to fill in gaps as needed.

What about joining crochet squares with different stitch counts?

You may be wondering how to join crochet squares that have different stitch counts along their edges. Again, this may take a little figuring things out and some occasional fudging things to get it right. You’ll have to experiment.

Often times squares with different stitch counts are made with different weights, or thicknesses, of yarn. If your yarn weights aren’t very different from each other, say some are 3/DK and some are 4/worsted, I recommend using the larger weight of yarn for your joining.

If your squares are made with very different yarn weights, then it’s best to choose one that falls somewhere in the middle of the range.

As you join the squares, you will need to skip the extra stitches on the square with more of them. Stagger them though, or you will get a big pucker. So, for instance, if you have squares of 20 and 25 stitches, you will join four stitches, and then skip one on the square with 25, join four more, and so on. Do a little math here so that you can figure out how best to stagger the skips.

Subtract the lower number from the higher one. Then divide the lower number of stitches by that difference. That’s how many stitches you’ll work in a row before a skip. If you have a remainder when you divide then you will have one or a few extra stitches after the last skip to work normally.