The American folk classic, “Garden Song,” by David Mallett, is among other things, a reminder to us that most of the projects we complete in life are not accomplished immediately and in one fell swoop, but like a garden, come to fruition over time. Or as Mr. Mallett so accurately puts it, “inch by inch, row by row.”

Such was the case with the recent yarn bombing project I participated in with the Off the Hook Crochet Guild.

Yesterday, I slathered on sunscreen to keep from getting a burn as we busied ourselves with the final fitting and joining together of the pieces for our bronze friend, Major:

It was a far cry from the cold, cold day we first ventured out with step stools, newspaper, masking tape, fabric, and measuring tape in hand to create a pattern that we could use to guide us in the preliminary assembly of the bull cozy (which you can see here, if you are interested in more pictures of the process).

I was again reminded of the importance of process when I went about the task of joining the Bauhaus block rows.

After making several mistakes along the way, I assembled three rows composed of three Bauhaus blocks each:

I then placed two of the rows right sides together, and working from right to left (left to right is very slow and awkward for me), I threaded my ever wonderful Clover bent-tipped needles with one of the long yarn tails and made my first whipstitch through the corresponding knots at the end of the rows:

I then proceeded to make 8 more whipstitches through both loops of the corresponding stitches on either Bauhaus block. I made my 10th and final whipstitch by going through the corresponding knots at the end of the two blocks.

Having finished joining the first block of one row to the first block of another row, I proceeded to the second squares of the respective rows, threading the long yarn tail from one of the squares to be joined through the eye of my Clover bent-tipped yarn needle and beginning the process all over again.

Eventually, I got all of the rows joined. Here is how the back looked after joining, and before weaving in ends and trimming:

Here is how it looked from the front:

I still need to weave in the ends and trim them to finish off this swatch, and while I sometimes think it would be nice to have a magic wand that I could wave to make things happen more quickly, for most endeavors, the magic of community and persistence is enough.

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