Weekends like this — where every minute is spoken for — make my mind harken back to long ago days when I read what I think of as Richard Scarry’s “busy books” to my two older children.

At the time, life seemed very full, and the drawings that illustrated the stories were both exquisite and dizzying. The details alone told the story, and the illustrations and accompanying text transported me right into the pages of the book.

By the time my youngest child was born, the two older children were established readers and chose other reading material for their brother that they thought would be of greater interest. So instead of so much Richard Scarry, he got more Calvin and Hobbes, as well as a lot of Advanced Placement History.

But this weekend, I was like one of the characters in one of the “busy books.” There was laundry to be washed, errands to be run, shopping to be done, and a piece of crochet to be documented (more on that in Tuesday’s blog post). It wasn’t until early this afternoon that I finally sat down to work on the fourth (and final) crochet square for the “How to crochet like Olek” tutorial I have been putting together.

So at the end of a harried but pleasant weekend, I plied my craft, and in the late afternoon that looked even later because of the rain and cloud cover, I finished the fourth square (bottom), seen here it is with it’s companion — the third square (top):

I finally had all four squares needed:

Using a 4.5 mm hook and Red Heart Super Saver cornmeal yarn, I put the right sides of the two new squares together and joined them to each other:

Now ready to join the two columns of two squares each, as with the top to bottom join, I put the two columns of crochet with right sides together:

Secured a contrasting color yarn with a slip knot to the 4.5 mm hook I was using:

and inserted the hook through the sides of the corresponding double crochet stitches as shown:

Then as I had with the top to bottom joins, I completed a single crochet stitch and chained one:

Which I repeated until I had worked my way across the length of the join:

Here is a detail of the back of the seam:

a detail of the front of the seam:

as well as this overview of the four squares all joined:

So why have a crochet tutorial like this?

My reasons are twofold.

One is that I hope other crocheters will use it to create their own crochet murals and crochet posters using the switchboard tool provided at Love Across the USA or their own imaginations.

The other is that I hope this inspires and gives people the confidence necessary to sign up for one of Olek’s workshops as she makes her way around the United States. Not only will you get to experience the power and empowerment of crochet in action, but you’ll also get to get see first hand how you can start to change your world, one stitch at a time.