This morning, I woke up earlier than I would have liked. Unable to get back to sleep, I decided that I should get to work, but even that wasn’t going as I would have liked. I had any number of ideas about how to go about making the hot air balloon inspired yarn bomb that I want to have done by Saturday, so I did the only thing I could do. I texted my youngest son and de facto crochet consultant.

I think I am on firm ground when I say it’s a job he would rather not have, but he is generous in humoring me about these things, so when I asked him, sixteen small panels or four large ones, he quickly texted back: four large ones.

Then when I was having doubts about the size of the basket, he quickly answered, and because I knew that thinking it through any further than I had would lead to nothing getting done, I got out the notebook with the panels I had planned:

dug up the Impeccable Loops & Threads clear blue yarn that I had purchased because there wasn’t a skein of Red Heart Super Saver delft to be found in all of Albuquerque,

and then I got out my hooks and my ruler and got to work.

Because I am in a bit of a hurry, I decided to work four two-foot by two-foot squares. This means that I will have just three seams to join instead the fifteen seams that the one-foot by one-foot panels would require.

Looking over the designs I had made, I started with a chain of 80, and started making the first of many double crochet stitches that will fill the next few days.

The first few rows of any future yarn bomb are not the most inspiring. For starters, it doesn’t really look like anything yet, and then there is the matter of making sure you have your gauge right. If you don’t get it right in the first few rows, it will haunt you for the entire panel.

But eventually, I got in a kind of transcendent crochet state, and I finished 3/8ths of one panel:

and got a reasonably promising start on a second:

At the moment, I am thinking that despite my late start and hurried planning, I just might get this yarn bomb done and put up on my fence in time for the opening of the 2019 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta festivities.

In the meantime, I will move forward, one stitch at a time.