Each year as I begin work on my state fair piece there is an air of excitement, an ineffable joi as I first begin.

It is hard to escape the exhilaration of a new project: a design to be planned, yarns to be chosen, colors to be settled on.

The initial planning is engaging on many levels, but eventually the project shifts from exhilaration to mediation, and what remains is the doing.

So today I took all the finishing mojo generated when I finished making Andie Hanley’s Granny Circle yesterday and applied it to making more of the 1352 pieces needed for my state fair project.

I started by gathering together stray balls and partial skeins of worsted weight acrylic yarn:

By working with these seemingly innumerable bits of yarn, I figured I could both make the pieces I need for the project and bring greater order to my crochet empire/guestroom.

After one hour, I had made measurable progress:

Then, after taking a break to fit in some back-to-school shopping with my youngest son, I returned to my crochet efforts and by mid-afternoon, I had made still more progress:

After two more hours of crochet and random chores, I had amassed this collection of newly completed Bauhaus rectangles:

and found two more balls of yarn that I can begin work on tomorrow:

There is something both comforting and unnerving in knowing that as soon as I use what remains of one renegade ball of yarn, another will appear to take its place.

It would seem that both nature and the force that is crochet abhor a vacuum.