Today is the second day of state fair season, and while all of my creative efforts are focused on the narrative afghan honoring what I know of my paternal grandmother’s life, I must balance it with finishing another, non-crochet project. To that end, I am focusing on “what you can do” rather than “what you can’t do.”

So today, before the non-crochet project claimed my attention, I decided that I needed to get something done, and that something was to weave in these ends:

It took no more than 10 or 15 minutes, but in that quarter hour’s time, it was (after having sat undone for more than 9 months) finished:

With that completed, I reflected on my efforts toward filling the center panel.

Inspired by a piano scarf crazy quilt I saw at the Madison County Historical Museum in June of last year, I began making some crochet pieces that mimic the pieces of the piano scarf that I had seen:

While their general state of undoneness (the ends are not woven in, there is no decorative stitching) made them look more than a bit messy, I had a feeling that there was something that I had not quite gotten right.

Not convinced that I had gotten it right, and equally certain I had not done enough to rule it out as a design element, I tried it next to one of the two central pieces of the center panel:

In doing so, I saw what had been bothering me — the scale was off.

The large off-white piece I had crocheted needed larger crochet crazy quilt pieces around it rather than the size I had been crocheting them.

Having determined what the problem was, but not having time to fiddle with it, I headed out the door to spend some time on the non-crochet project. One the way home, I stopped just long enough to get a much needed latte:

To my delight, when I got home, this box of yarn had arrived:

Toward the end of July, neighbors had stopped by for a preview of last year’s unfinished project.

When I laid all of the pieces out, it was clear to me that it would be nice if each panel had a modest frame, and that an all-out, over-the-top crochet frame around the entire piece might just be the ticket.

I also knew that I didn’t have enough yarn in a single color to accomplish this, so after looking up myriad projects at Ravelry and making careful note of the colors used when the names were given, I decided that Vanna’s Choice toffee might be perfect, and after trying it out around the piano panel:

and on the two long sides of one of the water tumbler panels:

I decided that the toffee was a really good choice.

Tomorrow will be another very full day, but I will continue to work as I always do: one stitch at a time.