Inspired by a cold snap in late October that seemed to have sent summer packing, I have been working on a granny square cardigan every moment that I have. The future sweater has at least a gazillion color changes, which, in turn, means it has at least two gazillion ends to weave in, and the past two days those ends have kept me busy.

On Monday, I picked up where I left off and finished crocheting the fourth round of the four remaining granny squares for the two panels that form the front of the sweater. Once I had that done, I turned my attention to crocheting the six granny stripes on either side six granny squares that comprise the sweater’s crochet hood. By noon, I had made substantive progress on crocheting the pieces that make up the body of the sweater:

Despite having made forward progress, the pieces were not yet finished, and I spent the next two hours carefully weaving in the many ends, and then even more carefully trimming those ends. Eventually, I ran out of ends to weave in and trim, and I was onto the next very necessary task: Blocking the pieces I had crocheted.

Blocking is often done when a project is completed, but I find that it can be just as effective, and infinitely easier, if it is done while a project is still in manageable parts. So it was with that truth in mind that I soaked the four completed pieces of my future granny square cardigan in soapy water, rinsed them in warm water, and then wrung out as much of the water as I could by rolling the pieces between towels, and soon the pieces were behaving just a bit better:

There is still quite a bit of work left to do, including two sleeves to be crocheted, but I will continue forward, one stitch at a time.