When I first learned to crochet, I was always in a hurry to finish a project, which meant that I had a lot of unfinished projects. In my head, once the crochet was done, so was the project, but that is not, in fact, how crochet projects work. Sometimes there are pieces to be joined, almost always there are ends to be woven in, and to give a project the finish that makes it worthy of the time you have put in, it helps immeasurably to block it, the more completely you are able to soak it, often the better, and then, for a final touch some time outdoors to get what I think of as “vitamin sunshine.”

Here is where I was with my the multicolor crochet granny square rug when I hit publish on my last blog post:

There were more than a few ends to be woven in, and I spent the lion’s share of yesterday afternoon doing exactly that. Using one of my beloved Hiya Hiya bent-tipped yarn needles, I threaded the needle and then wove the ends in one at a time; up and down and back an forth, making sure that each was secure. Eventually I had all of the ends woven in and trimmed:

It looked pretty good, but it needed one more thing: a good blocking and an afternoon basking in some of the restorative and transformative “vitamin sunshine.”

So after a good long soak, and a careful wringing out of water, I laid the rug out in the sun, and left it there for several hours:

Once the rug was dry, I rolled it up, brought it inside, and placed it in front of the bookcase for which I had made it:

When I began this project, my goal was to crochet a rug that would be attractive and serve as a protective buffer between new bookcase and the floor, so while I have an awesome new rug, I am still short any protection for the floor under the bookcase itself.

Now all I have to do is design and make new crochet coasters to go under the bookcase—one stitch at a time.