Hookin It - Long Term Project

It seems lately I've been spending a lot of time wandering around craft stores. What should I buy? What should I try? It's been a very long time since I actually looked at everything in the store. Turns out doing that is bad for me. I see the cheesiest tackiest thing and I know it must be mine.

Hence, Latch Hook Jesus.

It was totally more than I wanted to spend (39.95) but I had a gift card years old gathering dust that I was holding for just the pefect project. It turns out once you envisage a latch hook Jesus on your wall you cannot turn away. I did try. I failed. The spirit called to me.

I happily brought it home and opened the box. Surely it can't be that hard? Of course it can. First thing I noticed was that it's HUGE. It's 3 feet tall. It certainly taught me to look at the dimensions printed on the box a little closer. It's in inches though, and that means math, which I avoid if I possibly can. But I was still excited. Too excited to take pictures. I dove in right away.

Yarn, check. Jesus check, pattern check....no hook. Had to go out and spend 2.59 on a hook. But now? Now I'm ready. Except that the yarn comes in umpteen bundles with all the colors swirled together un - freaking - marked like this:

I rallied on. I picked out white bits and cream bits and...vanilla bits? They all looked totally the same and of some colors there were only 4 in each bundle. It took me an entire Alan Arkin/Audry Hepburn movie to get one row. I decided next session I would be smart. I spent hours deciding which color went with what name and separated them all into individual baggies, like so:

I strongly recommend this method. Even husbands can help with the sorting, as long as he has a good light.

I've spent about two weeks on the thing now, at various times in front of the telly. I'm 1/6th done. It's not as boring as I thought it would be but mostly I think that's a mixture of trying to find yarn baggies under sleeping dog buts and well...it's Jesus! Here he is, one sixth done:

That little box in the corner is a DVD box for scale. I love you ginormous Jesus head!!