I have talked a lot about the 2011 North Carolina State Fair since early August.

In that time I have been diligently working on a project that I want to enter in Department Y (Home Furnishings), Class 103 (Non-Threaded Needlecraft), Hand crocheting Y00030 (Afghan, 2 or more colors).

While I have spent hours pouring over colors and design possibilities and even more hours working to bring my ideas to fruition, there was one crucial detail I had not yet attended to: I had not yet remembered to register to enter my piece in the fair.

I recently learned that hard way that overlooking registration deadlines can be, at best, inconvenient, so this morning, after I had spent several hours restoring order to the living room (which my current project seemed to have commandeered) and making these additional squares:

which I then used for the project that I am currently working on:

I got went online to the website for the 2011 North Carolina State Fair, and went to the page that details how to enter the competitions and links to the online registration.

The online registration is more user friendly now than it was the first year it was available, and each year seems to bring some new feature that makes it easier to use. This year it only took me 10 minutes to complete the registration.

I am lucky that the deadline I missed in the flurry of late summer activities that has included orthodontist appointments, trumpet lessons, back-to-school shopping, alpaca ranch tours, Aikido lessons and crochet guild meetings, is a bit more forgiving.

While I don’t know what will still be available when I get there, I am going to Greensboro early tomorrow morning,for the CGOA (Crochet Guild of America) Fall conference. I plan to have fun no matter what, but it would have been nice to have not missed the pre-registration deadline.