Due to my new year’s intention to spend the first two months of the year completing unfinished projects, for the first time in recent memory I did not spend Valentine’s Day (or the run up to it) crocheting hearts of some sort. Instead with Valentine’s Day 2013 at hand, I worked on a recently unearthed project in need of finishing.
Last year at this time, I had just finished work on a rendition of Alice Merlino’s Crochet Heart Scarf that I made with a Manos del Uruguay silk blend and gave to my mom:

And while there were any number of adorable Valentine’s related projects that I wanted to make, I have any number of interesting projects that neither I, nor anyone else, will get to enjoy if I don’t finish them. So today, after I took advantage of the day’s sunshine and did some laundry and a few other household chores, I got back to the “If pigs (and dogs and birds and bears and frogs and lions and turtles) could fly” project.
As a result of my efforts today, I finished the fifth (of fifteen) rows which can be seen here on its own:

and here with the previous four rows that I have finished:

This project requires a fair amount of applique — a technique that adds texture and interest to the piece, but also means that this is a project that cannot be finished quickly, and as the ever lengthening days of February usher in the spring, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I finish it before the month is over.