5/28/2013

The Never-Ending Chuppah!

Hello friends! I can't believe how long it's been since I've made a post, but you will definitely understand why, just check this out:



210 squares, 6 helpers, a little under 2 months, and about 300 hours of crochet went into this 52 square foot behemoth. So obviously it's been occupying every spare moment of my free time for the past month. The photos above are pre-blocking.


My bosses at Woodcut Maps, Gabe and Cat, have been engaged for quite some time and are tying the knot as I type in New York. Gabe is Jewish and as is tradition they wanted to have a Chuppah (a kind of canopy) covering them during the ceremony. I was so honored when they asked if I could make it for them! The idea behind the design was so sweet and simple: there's one square for each person at their wedding, and all the squares are different so people can look at it and know which square is theirs. The blockiness of the color layout was intentional as they wanted all the squares from different family groups to be connected. They picked 10 colors of yarn plus one for the seams from their wedding inspiration colors and then I sent them to Crochet Pattern Central so they could pick out 20 six-inch granny square patterns, plus I added an extra 10 of the original style granny square for the last-minute RSVP'ers.


Needless to say I totally underestimated how much work this project would be, so I had some of my friends from Stitch & Bitch make some of the squares too. I just want to give a big shout out to all those ladies, I could never have gotten this done without them! Even my roommate's boyfriend seamed together a couple squares late one night when it was down to the wire.






When all the squares were done Cat and Gabe hosted a wedding soiree at the cottage, and my girls and I gathered in their living room to start seaming everything together. But even with all the help from my friends, this past Sunday I crocheted from 1:15 in the afternoon to 3:00 p.m. the next day with only a few breaks for food and such, plus a drive down to San Jose because I had to block it at Johnny's house since my place didn't have a space big enough. 25 solid hours of crochet... Dang. My hands hurt. But it was sooooo worth it. This is the most epic thing I have ever made and I am very, very proud of it.


Seven by seven feet of heavy, cuddly crochet awesomeness. Needless to say, I'm taking a little break from crochet for a while, but I've got some fun stuff to share soon. And when Cat sends me some photos of the chuppah in action I'll post the links to all the squares' patterns and the joining method.