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I have three more days to finish the center panel of my now 2017 North Carolina State Fair project, and if my schedule is to be believed, the days are almost completely errand free, so it is looking good for me to at long last finish this project which has carried me through three state fair seasons.

And if things don’t go as planned, I have a stapler and duct tape at the ready, so if necessary (and I certainly hope it’s not), I have all that I need to convert this crochet afghan into a mixed media project — and I’ll let the judges figure out which category it belongs in.

But from where I am sitting now, it doesn’t seem to me that it will come to that. The pieces are beginning to fall into place, I am getting things attached and seamed and decorated, and the only thing to do at this point is to keep my eye on the prize.

To that end I have spent a lot of time on what seems like fussy little detail work, but it is these details that will ultimately make the piece.

Both today and yesterday, I spent a lot of time on the decorative embroidery. Here is a detail of some work I did yesterday:

and here is a detail of some work I did today:

In addition to the surface work, I also made measurable, if not impressive, progress on the piecing, joining these two pieces:

Which after a touch more decorating, I will join into this spot:

Which will then need some surface decorating to complete it:

This overview shows both how close and how far away I am from finishing this:

There is a lot of work I need to get done between now and my next blog post. I will continue to complete as many details as I can fit in between now and Saturday morning, but then I will need to turn my attention to finishing all of the piecing and working out the details of securing the center panel to the rest of the project.

In the meantime, I will continue working, one stitch at a time by artificial light and by any means necessary.