On Thursday I finished crocheting my current front burner project, a child’s crochet poncho designed by Yolanda Soto Lopez, but there were still a lot of ends to be woven in.

So when the sun rose on Friday I got out one of my bent-tipped yarn needles and set to work, and by mid-morning Saturday after weaving in ends here and weaving ends in there, I had finished weaving them all in:

The next step was to get my scissors out and carefully trim the many ends I had woven in, which I did:

and then only thing left to do before finishing the piece was to block it.

Given that I usually crochet with my pets nearby, I like to begin the blocking process by removing as much pet hair as possible with a lint roller, and then giving the piece a good soak to remove any remaining dander and hair.

Then, if it is something that is going to be worn (like a poncho or a scarf), I like to finish with a vinegar rinse that relaxes the fiber (yes, it even relaxes most acrylics), and then I follow up with one last rinse in plain water and a thorough wringing by rolling the piece being blocked between towels.

Despite the fact I made this particular process the first item on my list of “things that must get done today,” and despite the fact that I had the ceiling fan on in the guest room/crochet empire where it was drying, and despite the fact that I placed the damp piece directly under the fan, the poncho wouldn’t dry.

I checked on it just before lunch, I checked on it right after lunch, and I continued checking on it throughout the day. Because I was in and out of the crochet empire all day while I was waiting for the poncho to dry, I came across a long abandoned project that began it’s life as a series of squares I was going to turn into a rug.

I had frogged the original effort years ago, but when I was sorting through the large yarn caddy that houses the fiber goodness for this still unrealized project, I came across this long-forgotten effort:

and I got out a hook and some of the yarn and toyed with the E-6 square from the Afghan-that-eluded-me project from many years ago:

By the time I had gotten that far with the E-6 square, my dog was looking at me and making plaintive noises in an effort to lure me outside into the cold for a late afternoon walk, but before I would do that, I brought the poncho-to-be from the room that houses my crochet empire, and I got this photo of a almost, but-not-quite-dyr poncho:

The days right now are so short, they go by in the blink of an eye, but despite that truth, I know that even though I seldom accomplish as much in a day as I would like, eventually many projects get finished as we continue to move forward one stitch at a time.

Related posts: The return of poncho fever
My Saga of the Big Rug: Part 1
OMG! I finished the-afghan-that-has-eluded me