50% of an O.W.L.

So, I did make my 50% mark (and then some, actually!) on my Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. Since I'm still trying to catch up on blogposts, here's my turn-in post from Wednesday....

Name: CraftyGryphon
House: Slytherin, Sixth Year
Project Page: Tree Skirt Invisibility Cloak
Proposal Post: submitted post 409
Tags: sqwin12 dadaowl defenseagainstthedarkartsowl owlwinter2012
Yards (so far): 3,215.5 (isn't as bad as I thought it might be at this point.)

Hello, Examiners! I made it!!

Proposed 50% Mark: Halfsies!! There are 36 edge squares, 12 big trapezoids, 24 inner trapezoids, and then all the center stuff. The total area of actual crochet (last column, below) is approximately 63 square feet; half is about 31.5 square feet. The 50% point falls about just under 1/4 of the way through the 12" block section, so 1/4 of the 12" blocks (i.e., 3 blocks) plus 24 6" inner blocks plus the 18" of clusters should get me over the 50% mark.

What I've actually got done: 36 edge squares, 12 big trapezoids, 24 inner trapezoids, and all the center stuff. Which is all the component parts, yay! And yet... there is still more to do! I've actually got to join everything together, and math being what it is, it appears I will need to make an additional four small trapezoids for the bottom row. (I evidently calculated a nice pie-wedge opening, instead of the actual "hey, this needs to be straight-closed down the front" that actually happened.)

Here's everything finished thus far, sort of spread out. On a king-sized bed. Except for the 34 outer-edge trapezoids that are dumped in the middle.


The stuff dumped in the middle.


An earlier progress photo to show that there's actually a hole in the center of the thing, which was entirely covered by trapezoids in the other two shots:


Getting it all together and hanging properly AND lying flat is really turning into a challenge. I'm not using any sort of pattern, just making it up as I go, and it's a bit trickier than expected. I'm getting pretty good at figuring out how to crochet pretty strange shapes on the fly, although there's been a LOT of ripping back to get things to work. Whee?

I think I've got a good shot at actually finishing this thing. It's eating up an AMAZING amount of yarn - half a bongo bag so far - and it's going to make a really pretty tree skirt/cloak. But mostly tree skirt, which will be wonderful with my electric-white fake Christmas tree!!