In studying crazy quilts for inspiration for the center panel of what has become my 2016 North Carolina State Fair project, I noticed that in addition to triangles and irregular trapezoids of various and sundry sizes and shapes, there were a number of fan motifs.

Fashioned after the folded handheld fans that inspired them, the crazy quilt fans are often made from one or two colors with substantial embroidery adorning the surface, but one that captured my imagination used multiple colors, and I wanted to recreate it in crochet.

After studying the crazy quilt fan in question, I decided I would first try making separate pieces that I would then join, and while I liked the way the colors looked, the joins themselves (no matter how I made them) looked clumsy and cumbersome.

It took awhile, but after conceding to myself there was no way my original idea was going to work, I decided to try simply crocheting the fan as one piece, making regular color changes to achieve effect I desired; to my delight, for the most part it worked pretty well:

The only thing missing was a quarter circle piece to anchor the design, so I crocheted that:

In doing so, I got another idea for how I could make the multicolor fan, and instead of finishing what I had begun, I got to work on what would be my second effort, which also came out pretty well:

But because I had not properly finished either fan (weaving in and trimming ends, as well as joining the anchoring quarter-circle on the first effort), I simply have two dueling motifs, and no idea which one I will go with:

There are worse problems than having two motifs, either of which would work not only well enough, but very well, but with the days growing shorter and summer preparing to draw to a close, I am realizing that the expanse of time that was before me just four weeks ago is rapidly disappearing, and I had best keep my focus on the work at hand.