That is how many full days I have left to work on my 2013 North Carolina State Fair project (aka Cookieghan 2.0) as well the number of motifs I have left to complete.

I could have gotten more work done over the weekend had I simply stayed at home and taken advantage of the lovely weather, but his past Friday, after I had gotten my son off to school, walked the dog, and eaten lunch, I got in my car and headed to Concord, North Carolina, just north of Charlotte, for the express purpose of catching up with Michele Maks of “Mainly Crochet” fame at the Fall Knit & Crochet Show.

Formerly the editor of Crochet World, I only knew Michele from our online interactions, and I was looking forward to meeting her (and some of her crochet comrades) in real life.

I was not disappointed.

I also did manage to get in a little crochet. Having set myself up at one of the large tables provided by Red Heart Yarns for just such a purpose, a number of people stopped by to ask me about my project.

Some of the people who stopped wanted to know what I was working on, but some of the people who stopped were loyal readers who have been following my progress the last two months and took the opportunity of bumping into me to see how the project looked in person.

Buoyed by the encouragement and interest, I worked on piecing together the seven motifs I had laid out on Thursday, and some time early this afternoon, I finished with strip of seven motifs. Here is how it looked arranged in a circle:

and here is how it looked with the portion of the afghan I had completed so far:

Rather than join that strip to the body of the project, I decided to use the excellent light to layout the last seven motifs, first laying out the remaining large cookies:

and then arranging what was left of the small cookies:

There is still a lot of work to be one on this project, but it would seem that I just might finish it without having to burn any midnight oil.

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