My crochet fantasies always propel me toward things I could never dream of, but sometimes these fantasies are tempered by the hard cold truth of crochet reality.

This past Friday and Saturday I went to a conference, and I had prepared for this event by crocheting as many Flamboyant Afghan crochet squares as I could so that I would have something to work on while I listened to various presentations and workshops.

And while I was good, and I wove in ends at every available opportunity and did get the ends all woven in and trimmed before the conference was over:

The truth I had to face was this: there was (and is) no way I can get seventy-nine more squares like this done, and trimmed, and joined, and woven in and trimmed again with just the eight twenty-four hour days that are between me and the state fair deadline.

I cannot change the deadline, I cannot change the number of hours in a day, but, when I thought about it, there is one thing I can change: the size and nature of the project.

I wanted to enter my first ever New Mexico State Fair with an unforgettable blaze of crochet colors, and while there isn’t enough time for me to do that with a completed Flamboyant Afghan throw, there is enough time for me to revise the square, and instead make a Flamboyant Swag Bag.

I am long overdue for a new bag as I have not made one for myself in four years, and now seemed as good a time as any to get a start on a new bag.

Using my munificent supply of yarn scraps and a 4.0 mm hook, I made a couple of revisions and got a practically perfect four-inch square:

which I liked so well, that I made a second one:

I’m a little disappointed that I can finish the project I had in mind for this year’s fair in time for the deadline, but I will be even more disappointed if I don’t get to participate at all.