As difficult as it was (in ways) to admit to myself that I had not met the North Carolina State Fair deadline for the second year running, there were ways in which it was not, because even though I really wanted to get it done, I also want the project to meet it’s full potential, and it was not possible in the time that remained. After all the time I have put into it, when I am finally done, I want to have no regrets.

At the heart of my problem — both this year and last — was (fittingly) the center panel.

My original vision was not so much a “vision” as a nebulous sense of what I wanted, a feeling that I would know it when I saw it.

Of course, in order to see it, I needed to make it.

So there has been a lot of trial and error worked into this panel. Things I thought would work that didn’t, and then eventually settling on the most labor intensive design I have ever thought to crochet.

One of the challenges I have been facing are the gaps that are created when crocheting crazy quilt pieces.

The pieces crocheted are, of necessity, a variety of sizes and shapes, and it it up to me to make those shapes fit together.

Sometimes it goes swimmingly, and other times you end up with a space like the one shown at the bottom of the photo:

The first problem I encountered was where to begin.

Drawing from my munificent stash of index cards in a wide variety of sizes, I grabbed one of the larger ones and used it to cover “the gap”:

I then used a pen to outline the shape of “the gap” and drew some lines through it to demarcate potential shapes.

I decided to work from left to right, making a triangle-isa piece with a bit of a curve.

After several tries with my 5.5 mm hook and a mint green yarn, I eventually had a piece that fit:

but the interplay of the mint with the other colors was not what I thought it would be, so I set the freshly made shape aside, got out some Red Heart Super Saver guava and crocheted a second piece like the one I had just made:

I was much happier with the interplay of the guava with the colors around it, so I then moved onto make another piece to fill the gap, and after four attempts that didn’t work out in various ways, I finally hit on one that worked:

This sort of a project is not for the faint of heart or those in a hurry, but when I have crocheted the last stitch, woven in the last end, and trimmed all the lose threads, there will be no regrets.