Today was a picture perfect day: a brief mid-winter break that gave a breezy hint of the spring to come without all of the yellow pollen that descends on North Carolina once spring begins in earnest.

It was also the perfect day to sit at the table that is my outdoor office and renew my efforts to work toward some of the goals I set for the new year.

One of the goals I set was to learn Todd Paschall’s Crochet By Numbers technique for turning a photographs into a crochet portrait.

In January, I began my effort to reach that goal by completing a training pattern that is provided at his website on the Training Tools page:

While I learned a lot from that first effort, it was a 20 x 20 swatch composed of just 400 single crochet stitches. I didn’t think I was remotely close to ready to begin a portrait size project, so today, I consulted the Training Tools page again and began work on a pattern for my astrological sign, Leo.

The colors used were a little subdued for Leo, so I substituted Shocking Pink for the White, Pale Yellow for the Mid Brown, Lemon for the Warm Brown, and Bright Yellow for the Black to get a more authentic Leo look. After listening to the soundtrack for the musical Wicked once through, I had gotten this far:

As I work, I am beginning to become a little more confident with my understanding of the technique.

And maybe, just maybe, after I finish this swatch and develop some strategies for keeping the colors straight and knowing where I am in a row, I’ll be ready to tackle something bigger and more complicated.