This weekend, the crochet llama hat that has been resisting my efforts to complete it, finally succumbed and it is done.

All done.

The ears are secured, the ends are woven in–and trimmed–and the “fringe” (aka llama bangs) is distributed in what I think is an attractive arrangement. Now all that is left is to address an envelope, pack it up, and ship it off:

The fringe is a bit longer than I envisioned, but I loved the way the ends looked after the gentle wash followed by a gentle rinse followed by a bath in pink lemonade and watermelon flavored Kool-Aid.

The feathering of the ends was so perfect, I could not bring myself to trim them, so, with the llama hat completed–too long fringe and all–I took a look at the unfinished projects within arm’s reach and settled on the long forgotten mini-meta crochet pig.

I first began work on the teeny tiny pig in mid-August, and I have been losing and finding the pieces for almost four months now. Fortunately for me, I came across all of the pieces two weeks ago while I was trying to bring order to my crochet bins, and I had had the foresight to leave all of them on the mantle, so not only were they all in one place, they were practically at eye level.

The only problem?

I had no idea where the notebook I had used to track my progress had been put, but after looking over all of the pieces and the incomplete notes I had on my computer I had enough to move forward, so I did.

By the time the sun was ready to set, I had correctly written the directions for the ears, designed and written the directions for a teeny tiny pig snout, and written all of the directions for almost all of the pieces I have made so far (I still have to write the directions for the arm):

And while the mini-meta crochet pig is not quite ready for the crochet pig I had in mind when I designed it, I am getting closer to completing it, one stitch at a time.