Hands up if you’re tired of corporate looking lanyards?! I know I am, and because of that I don’t use one for my work card. I have cute little flower clip with the stretchy cord that I use instead. But there are times when I am wearing an outfit that doesn’t have pockets or a waist band when it would be better if I had a lanyard to hang around my neck instead. And so I decided to make myself one! And of course I had to make it from Granny Squares.

It would probably be easier and quicker to make one in short rows instead, but this one goes with my style personality so it was simple for me to go with this instead. I have used a 4ply / sport weight mercerised cotton to make this. I recommend using a mercerised cotton as it has a shiny finish and is also more hard wearing than normal cotton. I opted to make this one in six different colours and to a patterned sequence.

I ordered a bunch of little swivel clips which came with keyring loops from amazon as in the picture below – lots of fun colours to choose from and they seem to be quite well made.

The squares I’ve made from round one of a traditional granny square. These have ended up close to 2cm square, almost 1 inch square. I’ve joined as I went too. When I’ve made the squares I have worked the colours in order until I got to the length that I wanted. I then continued but reversed the colours from the midway point. This has allowed for the colours to match across when wearing it, which feeds into my slight OCD tendencies.

I thought of a couple of options for joining the little swivel hook to the squares. My immediate preference was to just join the swivel part. But I decided to add the keyring part to the squares and then attach the swivel to that. My main reasoning was that if the swivel hook part broke then I wouldn’t need to change the cord, I could just attach a new swivel hook to the ring instead. I don’t anticipate the swivel hook breaking as the hinge feels really sturdy, but I have seen and had plenty of the cheap corporate ones break and render the cord useless – something I wanted to avoid.

This is a relatively quick little project, and one that I feel would sell well at a market stall and will make for great little gifts to have on hand. It would make for a perfect teacher gift too – or for anyone that needs to carry an ID badge of any kind at work.

If you love granny squares and are always on the lookout for new project ideas then be sure to hit subscribe to this blog. If you’re even more keen you can sign up for my Granny Square Club or a higher level of the Hooked on Crochet Club. You’ll get access to a new granny square every month, the entire back catalogue of squares and tutorials for the square and granny projects.

Seona x