Did you ever...

....take a three quarter made, granny square, afghan apart?

Oh, brother.  Don't.  Take it from me, it is a very tedious chore.  And painful, until your 'common sense' kicks in.

There's the thing.  Years ago I decided I was going to make an afghan in bright orange and yellow hues.  I'd make star shaped, (squares), and then hook them all together.  I crocheted them together as I went along. For a while it looked like I was really on to something.  I was pretty pleased with myself.  Then, for some reason, I sat my work aside, for quite some time.

When I did pick up the afghan again, I was not as pleased with my work, but decided I'd come too far to give up, so I continued making stars. However, this time I decided to crochet all the stars and then hook them together, but something must have come up because I put the incomplete afghan back on the shelf for another lengthy rest.

Next time I worked on the blanket, wanting to hook all my stars together,  I realized I had not crocheting quite as tightly as the original stars, and I couldn't get the old stars and new stars to match up.  I was very disgusted with myself and put the whole shebang into the closet where it stayed for years and years and years.

Finally, last week I got a 'bee in my bonnet', and decided to do 'something' with all that yarn. And......without further ado, set about, first taking the connected star section apart, and then started pulling apart the stitches of each individual star.

Oh, it was tedious alright, slow and painful, too.  I was using my thumbs and forefingers to seek out each knot, and then with my thumbs and forefingers undid every....single...knot.  Man! I can't begin to tell you the pain I felt between the underside of my thumbnails where they connect to the skin beneath.  Who knew that would hurt. Did it ever...and to tell the truth even this morning, the tips of my thumbs are still sore if I press on them too hard.

Anyway, finally, Sunday afternoon Ms. Common Sense gave me a good talking to.  "Idiot", she says, says, she, "once you find a knot, why don't you take your smallest pair of craft scissors and simply 'snip' the knot open."

?

?

?

?

I wanted to slap her silly!!!!!!!

Actually, I wanted to throttle her...I'm sure you get my drift.

But, I eventually put my wounded pride aside and began to use Ms. Common Sense's method, and it worked!  Boy, oh boy, did it ever work.  I got so inspired I dwelt on little else than pulling those stars apart, and winding them all together into large balls so I can eventually use all that yarn for something else.  I finished the job early yesterday evening.

And, that is why I didn't blog yesterday, I was so inspired by Ms. Common Sense and her ability to make a hard job easy, I had to bring the chore to completion. Don't get me wrong, it was still long and tedious work, but at least it's finally done and now I've a whole bunch of yarn to begin a new project.  Don't worry, it will not involve five pointed stars.