There has been a sharp change in the weather of late, and summer though just two days away, seems like a distant memory that makes me think of state fair projects past.

Long time readers might recall my 2011 North Carolina State Fair project.

Inspired by a quilt I saw at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee, I had made this crochet motif composed of four squares and four rectangles:

I had initially thought that I would make a bunch of motifs just like the one pictured above, join them, and that would be my project, but before too long, that motif morphed into this:

which formed the center of my 2011 project.

I made the center square red because in a traditional log cabin quilt (which my project ultimately was not), a red center square symbolizes the heart/hearth of the home.

Like the red square of a log cabin quilt, my grandmother’s kitchen was the heart of her home, and my last design challenge has been designing the fourth and final corner panel of this year’s state fair project.

Fortunately for me, my mother (using that wondrous thing called the internet) was able to track down the very distinctive linoleum floor tile in my grandmother’s kitchen; Armstrong Linoleum style 5651 in the bottom right of this image:

Using that image as my guide I came up with this motif which for me captures (rather imperfectly) the essence of the floor tiles in my grandmother’s kitchen:

There is not that much time between now and the 2014 North Carolina State Fair deadline, and as so often happens at this time of year, I have many stitches to crochet before I sleep.