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lydySo, I'm working on this enormously pretty afghan. Each motif has a center square in a really pretty variegated yarn, and some lovely edging. And it requires a fuck-ton of sewing. About ninety million squares. Ok, no, really only 96 squares, and if I'd made gauge it would only have been 63, but it didn't, and then I decided that since it was so nice and cuddly warm I wanted it to be big enough to go nose to toes and tuck in all around. It's not quite big enough for two, but plenty wide for one. Finished size will be a shade over six feet by four feet. And as I said, it's really pretty.
I hate sewing. Even really easy whip-stitch is incredibly boring and annoying. And this is basic whip-stitch. First, you make short strips, in this case, eight squares long. Then you sew the strips, in this case twelve of them, to each other. All well and good, right? How can this possibly go wrong? Really, it's so simple, even a child could do it. (If you didn't hear Tom Lehrer in you head just now, go and listen to "New Math" again, it's clearly been too long.) Attaching a square takes me in the neighborhood of four to seven minutes. When you multiply this out, this means about twelve hours of sewing. At which point, the center did not hold. Where the four squares met together, they kind of came apart. Some a little bit, some a lot. This is actually even a larger problem than it sounds, since part of the pattern's charm is that where the squares meet, they form a four-pointed star, which is very pretty. And when it worked, it was very pretty. But mostly, it didn't work, what with the holes and the falling apart thing. I couldn't even figure out why it was doing it, mostly.
In desperation, I started trying to repair the individual holes by just doing a little extra whip-stitching. Three hours later, I realized that I was, in fact, repairing the same holes over and over again. The center would not hold. Just fucking wouldn't. With doan wanna sauce. So, then I started disassembling the fucker. At first, I thought that I could just disassemble the short strips, and have 12 short strips, and then start again. Then I made a mistake, and disassembled along the wrong axis, and realized that I was well and truly fucked. However, this also made clear to me that actually completely disassembling the bastard was, in fact, necessary. The more I looked at the construction, the more clearly I saw how completely and utterly fucked it was. It just couldn't hold. It just all had to come apart. All ninety-six motherfucking squares. Gods help me.
I finished dissassembly today. My best estimate is that it took me about five hours to disassemble. I didn't time it carefully. I damaged five motifs in the process, that will take me probably another two hours to fix. The damage isn't severe, never more than a single round, but it's annoying.
So, let's count. Twelve hours of sewing completely down the drain. Another five hours of disassembly. At least two hours of repair to damaged motifs. Oh, and let's not forget the three hours of attempted emergency repair which was also a complete waste of time. That's, um, 22 hours of wasted time. Reassembly, which I really hope I can start tomorrow, will take at least 12 hours of sewing time, assuming I can think of a reasonable way to do the sewing so that it actually holds. I have some ideas, there. And then, probably another two hours of doing the border. If we call it three hours for the border, then that's, you know, an nice round 15 hours. And I think I need the slop, either for the border or for the extra work in figuring out how to sew these fuckers more securely.
Jesus, people. The motifs were running just under an hour a piece. I usually figure about 10% of the work of the finished afghan is assembly and border. In this case, if we call the motifs 95 hours, the finishing time is running 27 hours. That means that, including wasted time, my finishing time is well over 25% of the work on this afghan, and that the total hours spent will be over 130.
All I can say is that this sucker better be really fucking beautiful.
I hate sewing. Even really easy whip-stitch is incredibly boring and annoying. And this is basic whip-stitch. First, you make short strips, in this case, eight squares long. Then you sew the strips, in this case twelve of them, to each other. All well and good, right? How can this possibly go wrong? Really, it's so simple, even a child could do it. (If you didn't hear Tom Lehrer in you head just now, go and listen to "New Math" again, it's clearly been too long.) Attaching a square takes me in the neighborhood of four to seven minutes. When you multiply this out, this means about twelve hours of sewing. At which point, the center did not hold. Where the four squares met together, they kind of came apart. Some a little bit, some a lot. This is actually even a larger problem than it sounds, since part of the pattern's charm is that where the squares meet, they form a four-pointed star, which is very pretty. And when it worked, it was very pretty. But mostly, it didn't work, what with the holes and the falling apart thing. I couldn't even figure out why it was doing it, mostly.
In desperation, I started trying to repair the individual holes by just doing a little extra whip-stitching. Three hours later, I realized that I was, in fact, repairing the same holes over and over again. The center would not hold. Just fucking wouldn't. With doan wanna sauce. So, then I started disassembling the fucker. At first, I thought that I could just disassemble the short strips, and have 12 short strips, and then start again. Then I made a mistake, and disassembled along the wrong axis, and realized that I was well and truly fucked. However, this also made clear to me that actually completely disassembling the bastard was, in fact, necessary. The more I looked at the construction, the more clearly I saw how completely and utterly fucked it was. It just couldn't hold. It just all had to come apart. All ninety-six motherfucking squares. Gods help me.
I finished dissassembly today. My best estimate is that it took me about five hours to disassemble. I didn't time it carefully. I damaged five motifs in the process, that will take me probably another two hours to fix. The damage isn't severe, never more than a single round, but it's annoying.
So, let's count. Twelve hours of sewing completely down the drain. Another five hours of disassembly. At least two hours of repair to damaged motifs. Oh, and let's not forget the three hours of attempted emergency repair which was also a complete waste of time. That's, um, 22 hours of wasted time. Reassembly, which I really hope I can start tomorrow, will take at least 12 hours of sewing time, assuming I can think of a reasonable way to do the sewing so that it actually holds. I have some ideas, there. And then, probably another two hours of doing the border. If we call it three hours for the border, then that's, you know, an nice round 15 hours. And I think I need the slop, either for the border or for the extra work in figuring out how to sew these fuckers more securely.
Jesus, people. The motifs were running just under an hour a piece. I usually figure about 10% of the work of the finished afghan is assembly and border. In this case, if we call the motifs 95 hours, the finishing time is running 27 hours. That means that, including wasted time, my finishing time is well over 25% of the work on this afghan, and that the total hours spent will be over 130.
All I can say is that this sucker better be really fucking beautiful.
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Past performance does not guarantee future results
Date: 2014-11-19 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-19 09:29 pm (UTC)Much sympathy. I hope it comes together, stays together, and is lovely. (It will probably be lovely.)
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Date: 2014-11-19 10:00 pm (UTC)And I don't have a lot of experience with crochet because I mostly knit -- for me knitting is way faster -- but so far when I've had to join motifs together into a larger object I've been crocheting them together instead of sewing. It seems to work for my purposes, though I actually like having the visible stitches in a channel between motifs, and you might not. Also an afghan is going to be a bigger object than anything I've yet done in crochet, so strain on the seams might pertain, in choosing one's joinery method, I don't know. But if part of the hate for joining is for doing it by sewing, maybe trying crochet would make it less frustrating? There seem to be several different approaches available that produce a fabric that lays flat. The one I'm using involves putting two pieces right sides together and then single crocheting through the loops farthest from the opposite motif, if that makes sense? The YouTube video I learned it from was using it for joining up small afghans, I think (whereas I am making a chair cozy...).
no subject
Date: 2014-11-19 10:47 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-19 10:49 pm (UTC)I don't know if it will help with your current project, but I've found useful joining techniques in the Edie Eckman books Connect The Shapes Crochet Motifs and Beyond The Square Crochet Motifs, and just about any book/pattern by Robyn Chachula is going to have innovative attractive ways to join crocheted pieces together.
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Date: 2014-11-20 12:59 am (UTC)I have crocheted things together, and I generally prefer it. However, because of the way the corners meet, I don't want a visible seam, so I haven't tried it. If this fails again (dear gods, please no) I may resort to that, but I'm going to try this sewing thing again. If I'm correct (and I may not be) the problem was that the ends of the yarn for each seam weren't tightly enough woven in, and came loose, and all hell broke loose. So I'm developing a scheme for reinforcing the ends by starting a little ways in, stitching out to the corner, and then back again to the other end, then in again just a little, so that each end has a bit of extra. This will be extra annoying, since it will require carefully counting in so that the stitches line up (if you just start at the corner, you totally know where you are), but there may be a way to get around that, too, now that I think about it, if I leave an extra long tail...... Sorry. Planning out loud.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-20 11:26 pm (UTC)