The Hilbert Curve Blanket

(aka the worst way to crochet a blanket)

This is a project inspired by my friend that has ended up turning into an obsession and a four day long process to make just the first row. The idea of this blanket is to make something inspired by a Hilbert Curve that shows off the way that it fills space. So, instead of working row by row normally, the first row creates a bunch of increases and decreases matching the way that the Hilbert Curve squiggles through a square. This does make the process of making the first row very meticulous with a lot of counting and tracking, but after that it becomes a simple process of placing increases and decreases into the increases and decreases of the previous row. You don’t even actually have to count the rows because on the last row, some of the decreases will end up right up next to each other and that shows the end point.

As much as I love this project and making it, it’s also not for the faint of heart. The rows will be extremely long and the first row is hard to keep track of if you’re not careful. I am sharing a much simpler version of the one I started with because that ended up with me taking four days to make one 100ft long row.

The project was originally made with granny clusters, but I've also made it with a moss stitch without issue, and I’m pretty sure it should work with your preference for how to connect them. Personally I have a chain between each cluster and three chains at the corners, but I assume that most ways of making granny clusters would work. I have made a few versions of this with many different yarn and hook sizes and most have worked fine. I would recommend measuring out what your normal gauge looks like for a granny square and see if that would make a reasonably sized blanket for you.

One more thing before getting into it, I used what I’m calling a dynamic chain here, wherein you use a second ball of yarn to do the chaining and add more chains as you go. With how long the rows are and the variances with if you did/did not skip the right amount of stitches, the chain could easily be the wrong length, and the dynamic chain avoids that problem.

This pattern is still under construction, I have plans for the future to make it more readable and easy to understand

The pattern itself

This pattern is very flexible and in that spirit, I have offered a few different options. The pattern and abbreviations all update when you change the settings below. All of them work and give you different sizes/styles of blanket

Abbreviations used

sc - single crochet

dc - double crochet

ch - chain

ch sp - chain space

sk - skip

st - stitch

Row 1

(each step is numbered for clarity, it is all row 1)

Row 2 to the end

At the start of even rows, ch 3 and turn, into the last chain space, dc 2 more stitches into that space, making another cluster. From then on, make a single cluster into each chain space. When you come across a decrease from the row before, skip that space and move the stitch marker to the new decrease. When you come across increases, add a cluster, chain three, and add another cluster into the chain three space (triple increases are just two normal increases on the later rows). At the end of the row, make a cluster in the space made by your chain 4 at the beginning of the first row.

For row three and odd rows onward, chain 4 and turn (creating a chain space), start the clusters into the next chain space, and continue as normal.

Finishing the Blanket

After everything is done, lay it out on a flat area. The increases and decreases will make right angle turns and it should squiggle up into a square. From there, you sew together all the parts where it meets up and it should make a nice square blanket once it’s all done (block as necessary)