This year we celebrated the Fourth of July by going to an exhibition baseball game at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, North Carolina. The 2014 Collegiate National Team was playing the third game in a five game Friendship Series with Chinese Taipei.

While there were lots of things to enjoy at the ballpark — including “The Star Spangled Banner” sung by the choir, 100 Men in Black, and some after game fireworks — I also got to take this fun photo of team USA’s team photographer:

I had spent as much of the Fourth of July getting ready for the game, crocheting as many of the Sunshine and Shadow squares as I could, leaving the ends to be woven in so that I would have something to keep me busy at the game, and the number of squares I took with me worked out just about right for the available time.

By Saturday morning, the afghan was beginning to take on even more of its final form:

The one problem I faced? Not enough orange or yellow yarn as a result of having used each of those colors for other projects in the eight years since I began this blanket.

After at least an hour spent driving hither and yon in an effort to find the orange and yellow I would need (Bernat Super Value carrot and bright yellow), I got home feeling rather discouraged, and then did what I should have done in the first place: I went online, found the colors I needed, and was able to take advantage of a Fourth of July shipping discount.

Knowing that the balance of the yarn I would need to finish the project was on the way, I proceeded apace, and got this far before sunset on Saturday:

Then today, after helping my mother with a project I had promised to assist with, I managed to make and weave in all of the ends of as many squares as I had yarn for:

I am now very hopeful that I will have this project done before it is time to start on my 2014 North Carolina State Fair project, and I think that in the next day or so when I have a moment, I will scour this year’s state fair premium book to find a category into which the Sunshine and Shadow blanket fits.