I officially began my 2010 North Carolina State Fair project on August 1 of this year.

That first day I got as far as making this chart of the Hilbert Curve on graph paper:

I first came across the Hilbert Curve in 2004. At the time I wanted to make a project utilizing the design, but all of the designs I could envision were what I deemed “too much work.” Ironically, what I finally settled on for this year’s state fair project was many times more work than the first design I had cast aside as being too labor intensive.

Once I had my guide to square placement, I had to determine the nature of the squares I would be placing. Armed with an extensive array of Red Heart Super Saver yarns and a 5.0 mm hook, I tried various schemes until I arrived at the following: The white squares would have a colorful center with a neutral border; the gray squares would have a neutral center with a colorful border.

After several days spent agonizing over exactly which neutral shade I would use (I did briefly consider using cherry red as my neutral), my work began in earnest on August 4. From that day until now almost every day has included at least some work on the piece I have come to think of as the behemoth.

When I got out of bed this morning, row 31 needed to be attached to row 30, then rows 22 through 31 needed to be blocked, and lastly, row 22 needed to be joined to row 21. This last task is the one that, while not difficult, was substantially awkward. The fact that rows 22 through 31 were still a bit damp at the time I did the work, meant that there was additional weight that contributed noticeably to the awkwardness.

But, be that as it may, at a little bit after 4:00 pm EDT, I finally laced up the last small bit of seam and wove in the end.

It was all over except for the photographs. I climbed a ladder in an attempt to get a better view for this photo, but as you will see, I was not able to get directly over the center of it:

In an attempt to get a photo that better captured the overall design I tried hanging it on a cord (crocheted of course!) between two trees in the yard:

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Now all that’s left is to get out my lint remover and go after the cat hair and then turn my entry in to the powers that be at the North Carolina State Fair.