With the Granny Square Tote in the ta-done column, I began to rummage through my available UFOs (Unfinished Objects), and I came across a project I call “The Rainbow Bridge Comfort Shawl.”

Designed for my friend Andrea when a much beloved pet died, I have been meaning to get this project done for over two years now.

The initial work went very quickly, but when it came time to personalize it, my lack of experience replicating animal faces in crochet (dog faces in particular) came to the fore.

I read various crafting and crochet books, looked at assorted things other people had done, and because it wasn’t quick and easy for me and because I would run out of ideas faster than I could think them up, I set it aside.

At one point, I seemed to be nearing the finish. All that was left was to crochet one ear and figure out what to do for the eyes:

Then something happened.

I once again set the project aside, and today, when I tracked down the shawl:

I found the the face and the muzzle, but the ear I had crocheted was nowhere to be found.

It was missing, and I only had the vaguest recollection of how I had made that first ear.

Luckily for me, the photo I had taken for that long ago blog post was a very helpful guide, and after three not entirely successful tries, I was able to get what looked to me like a pretty good ear, so I made two of them:

Satisfied with how it looked on its own, I took a moment to see how it would look on the shawl:

Now that I am within an hour or two of finishing this project, I am not about to set it aside, and hopefully, I will have better luck finding the pattern I wrote for it than I did looking for the missing ear.