Today was another day of clear skies and sunshine, so I did yet another load of laundry.

The sunshine streaming into my living room also highlighted the need for me to tackle the dust and pet hair that had accumulated along the baseboards. With my cat and my dog looking on in horror, I vacuumed up as much dust and fur I could.

Setting aside housekeeping chores, I ran two brief errands. Then, after a lunch of freshly popped organic popcorn, I turned my focus to the buttered toast scarf I have been working on.

The buttered toast scarf is at a point where I have done the bulk of the crocheting, and what remains is the joining and appliquéing of pieces. While some in the world of crochet look to avoid projects that require weaving in ends, there are people like me who enjoy the piecework component of a project.

While I have seen many attractive one-color projects, and interesting work done with variegated and self-striping yarns, the fact remains that there are design effects that can only be achieved through joining and appliquéing one individual piece to another, and if a crocheter insists on avoiding the piecework, the options for design will be greatly limited both in terms of the shapes and colors used.

Twinkie Chan, thankfully, does not share this “avoid weaving in ends at all costs” mentality, and is utterly fearless both in her use of shapes and (in the case of the buttered toast scarf) the juxtaposition of colors.

Fortified by the bowl of popcorn and the diet Coca-Cola that comprised my lunch, I continued the careful work of weaving in ends and attaching the crocheted pats of butter on both the white:

and wheat:

pieces of toast.

Then, using Ms. Chan’s exquisitely precise directions, complete with a very helpful chart, I began the work of joining one piece of toast to another:

Piecework is not the kind of work that can be rushed. It requires one to take care and pay attention, but it is, sometimes, the only way to achieve a particular result, and I have always found it to be worth the effort.