My first attempt at using a crochet graphgan is now completed, and the process has taught me a few things.

The first thing I learned was how to read a graphgan. For those unfamiliar with the term, a graphgan is a diagram of a pattern within a grid, with each square on the grid representing one stitch. The graphgan I worked from is the Cat Silhouette Afghan from Mary Maxim, and it has 28,908 squares.

In order to follow the pattern, I learned to read the front of the afghan from right to left and the back from left to right. At first, that was mind-boggling, but I eventually got it. Instead of counting every stitch for every row, I used a yellow highlighter to identify the stitches I had completed adjacent to the stitches for the cats. That way, I only needed to count the stitches in and around those images. As backup, I also kept a row count.

Various YouTube videos taught me how to join yarn of differing colours mid-row. I also learned that I needed to turn my very large skeins of yarn into multiple golf-ball sized balls of yarn in order to limit the tangles. This was especially important for rows that required sometimes six or eight balls of yarn.

My first attempt to control tangles was to create a box with holes in it so that each thread of yarn would, in theory, stay separated from the others. It didn’t work at all! Complete failure.

By trial and error, I figured out that in order to reduce tangling it was best to turn the work upside down and dangle all the different yarn balls before turning the work and changing row direction. Regardless, I did spend a lot of time untangling yarn, but that is okay because it is a surprisingly soothing activity.

I also made a point of weaving in the yarn ends every ten or twenty rows so that I wouldn’t have such a big chore at the end of working the piece. Weaving in ends is my least favourite crafting thing.

After completing the graphgan pattern I worked eight rounds of border stitching to complete the afghan and happily put it in the mail to my youngest child who has four cats. When Canada Post ends their strike, sometime in the next who-knows-how-long, my work may reach its intended destination. Just like figuring out how to crochet from a graphgan, patience is the most important requirement.