I decided that the first puzzle I ever made should be a 15x15 challenge against the recently-published
@reibello, hence the first part of the title. He graciously allowed me to get my bearings before we settled on the terms of the challenge, which landed on: 15x15, bit of math content, and 4 spanners. Settled on theose terms after I was ready to publish, and before
@reibello started, because
@reibello is a swell human.
This is my first attempt at a crossword. I went into it with a theme and many word/clues in mind, including variations on the spanners. After being unhappy with the results of trying to shoehorn my topic clues into a pre-blocked grid, I started over with a properly clean slate and filled it... landing on a poorly executed spanner frame because that's how I could figure to cross my spanners. Then I ripped out a full corner and smoothed it, and then ripped and replaced a central 13-letter word and tied in all its new propagated crosses etc. So this is my first through 2.5th puzzle ever. The number of 1 and 2 sizers probably gave that away.
Apologies for several awkward clues; I allowed some topical-clue overindulgence and backed myself into corners. I may re-factor this into a new grid with all parallel spanners another time.
I will not apologize for my sense of humor, though you may :-D