Last March when I was packing to move in what has turned out to be the first leg of a journey to downsize, I put everything for my state fair piece into a designated bin so that I would have all of the pieces of the project in one place.

I was not, however, as careful to make sure I had everything I would need to complete the project once I unpacked it, and one of the things I neglected to include was an omnibus crafting tome, “The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery.”

It is my reference of first resort when it comes to all things not crochet, and while I toyed with the idea of going to Pinterest to look at the various options for traditional crazy quilt embroidery, I realized that if I were to do that, I just might fall into Pinterest and not find my way out in time to finish my state fair piece.

So, armed with a visual reference of photos I had uploaded to Flickr and a box cutter to get through the packing tape, I began opening some of the boxes I had packed last March, and to my delight, it didn’t take nearly as long as I though it would to find the book I needed:

Now, I was ready, but before I could turn all of my attention to the state fair piece, I decided to work on preparing a few more squares for my upcoming trip.

While looking for the book, I had come across this ball of yarn:

It was the exact shade of green I couldn’t quite put a name to that had bordered one of the four-patch squares I been rehabbing. So I crocheted a coordinating flower, and then used it to border a square with a real teal crochet circle center as well as crochet a fifth round of granny shells around a four-round magenta granny square:

Pleased with my progress, I then switched to a ball of Red Heart Super Saver cherry cola that I had also come across while unpacking, and used it to finish rehabbing two large Red Heart Super Saver carrot granny squares that are seen here with two other newly rehabbed squares:

With seven more squares ready for my upcoming travels, I decided I ought to get busy figuring out how to border the two large off-white panels that are an important component of the center panel of my state fair piece.

A friend had suggested grape fizz, but as I had the cherry cola within arm’s reach, I decided to give that a try first. I started by measuring out a length of yarn about 25′ long. Maybe not the smartest move, but I wouldn’t have to spend time making sure the colors blended:

Then, with great care, I split it in two:

Amazed and delighted that I accomplished this without creating a huge tangle, I got out my 3.5 mm hook and started crocheting a rickrack design to border the larger pieces. As I crocheted a substantial length, I realized that I would need to turn a corner with the border, and so I devised a way to crochet the corner that to my mind brought everything together, and when I came to the end of the length of yarn I was crocheting, I secured it with a stitch marker and laid it out to see how it looked, first on one piece:

then on the other:

My friend may be right. Grape fizz might be the better choice, but now that I have tried this, I can try the grape fizz and continue on this journey toward the finish moving forward one stitch at a time.