Here you will see how Jack started out, how he looked throughout the project and how he turned out. You will also learn a little bit about the whole process. All small pictures are clickable, so please click away and check out the larger images.
When a customer firsts contacts me wishing to have an image put onto an afghan, it is first of all an honor that they would entrust such a task to me.
Jack is a very special character who was drawn by Jim Lowe. This is the original picture that he sent to me to start with.
A very interesting character don't you think?
Before I can start on an order, details such as size, color and yarn type must be decided. There are all kinds of yarn ranging from baby yarn to very thick chunky yarn. Different yarns will give different sizes and textures for your afghan. Once I know what size the customer wants, I can then graph the picture. This is a very important step. Each square on the graph represents one stitch. No half stitches in one color, and the other half another. It's one or another. This step will show how much detail can be caught of the original work. Sometimes I can get more detail with different hooks and size of afghan.
Here is Jack, graphed just under 5' by 8' . The cards he is holding you will notice are blank. To be able to crochet those into the afghan the afghan would have to be much larger to get the detail. The images will be put on those later with embroidery floss.
Once that is finished and the colors have been picked out and purchased I can start to crochet the afghan! Then starts a process of counting, dropping and picking up different strands of yarn. Starting from the bottom, here is how Jack progressed.
From there is just continues on till the graphing is done and it is time for the edging. It is truly amazing to see something like Jack come to life under my fingers.
Unfortunatly I don't have as many in progress pictures as I would have liked. Jack has progressed quite a bit as you can see.
One final picture before Jack is completed. Working on Jack's face was quite exciting. His mouth is the length of my arm from my elbow to my hand!
Finally finished! Giving him his hair was the final step on the graph paper. After that he needs a quick edging to fnish up him up and then the cards need to be filled. I decided to crochet the images using thread and then sew them on instead of embroidering them. Unfortunatly it doens't look like I got a picutre of him before I finished the cards.
So for the grand finale, Here is Jack!
The following or photos of close ups of the different parts of the afghan. Enjoy!
Please excuse the quality of some of these close ups. I am still working on getting more close ups up for your enjoyment. Thank you for your patience! (close ups in progress.....)
