Three weeks ago tomorrow, after finishing Square 63 from Jean Leinhauser’s book, 101 Crochet Squares, I began work on Square 55 from the same book in what turned out to be a valiant, but short-lived victory.

Here was how far I got:

It was an attempt to not get any further behind on a crochet-along in which I am involved, and while it was a valiant effort, it was, as it turned out, insufficient, even though just four days later, I finished the square:

Despite the victory of having finished the square, my “real” life began to encroach on my crochet life, and the pictures I had taken as a record of this brief victory against time sat dormant in my camera, waiting to be uploaded, giving the victory a pyhrric edge to it.

In the meantime my state fair piece has grown ever-so-much more complicated with ideas for new motifs cropping up at inopportune and inconvenient moments demanding to be brought to life and included in this year’s effort.

So far I have been able to accommodate their unreasonable (and relentless) demands, but as of this morning, the deadline to complete the project is just 27 days away, and while I once completed a piece for the state fair in twelve days, some projects do not lend themselves to a twelve-day schedule, even if there were a dozen elves to assist with the crochet along with a team of fairies to tend to household tasks.

Without the assistance of elves and fairies, however, I will need to do what people everywhere are called to do every day: make the most of the the time I do have.