Day 31: Getting It All Done

Once I had settled on the basic afghan designs and decided on yarn and colors for each of them, I spent the next 4 months crocheting nearly non-stop. I am blessed to have an awesome support system of family, and friends with kids my daughter's age (most of whom are pretty creative themselves and don't mind me crocheting anytime we hangout).

Because Reversible Intarsia is such a new technique, when I started writing Reversible Color Crochet I did not have any contractors who could help me make the actual samples. So, I made the TEN afghans in the book, plus 28 individual squares, all myself.

 

These days I have quite a few trusted contractors I am able to hire to help me with many of the pattern samples I need to make for yarn companies and magazines. But the one contractor I tried to train and hire on to make squares for just one of the blanket projects missed a couple key details about the technique and I ended up remaking all those squares.

On the other hand, her mistakes were just what I needed to photograph for the illustrator to show examples of what the wrong way looks like in the Trouble Shooting Section at back on the book! I wanted to be sure to include examples of common mistakes and how to fix them.

At some point I realized that while I might be able to get all of the crocheting done by my deadline, weaving in ends on that much colorwork was more than I would be able to do myself. Fortunately, I was able to hire my good friend Carissa (who happens to live one block away) to weave in most of the ends for me, or I would not have been able to get them all completed in the time I had.

Because she was so close by, I was able to sit down with her and teach her how I would do it. She mastered all the tips and tricks I use for Weaving In Ends (also included in the Yarn Management section at the back of the book). She is now a marvelous "Finisher" and so convenient!

As the deadline was looming another friend's mom, Judith, spent several days and late nights steaming squares and seaming strips together while I finished edgings on the various afghans. I could not have done it without both of these lovely ladies!