I am, at this juncture, still trying to find my groove with this year’s state fair project, and it is my hope that working out the details of this second panel will propel me to greater (and faster) crochet.

While I have finally figured out most of the design, I am still crocheting a bit too slowly.

I had hoped that by the time I was ready to take a photo of my progress over the past two days, I would have crocheted all of the squares of soil for the chicken coop and pomegranate panel of this piece, but it turned otu that I was 28 brown squares shy of completion:

Why, you ask? (Or maybe you don’t.)

I got tired of making brown squares, so I made some blue squares, some gray squares, and an assortment of green squares for the other scenes. I worked out the design of one of the corner panels, and I spent a good amount of time (so far unsuccessfully) trying to track down an object that had been in my grandmother’s house so that I could figure out what color yarn I would need to render a facsimile of it in two-round granny squares.

But tonight, after the photo was taken, dinner eaten, and the dog walked, I took hook to yarn, and in a state that could best be described as contemplative panic, I made 7 of the 28 squares I need to finish this panel, so maybe, just maybe, I will soon be ready to move onto whatever is next.