The first thing I did yesterday morning was check to find out where I needed to go to turn in my 2019 New Mexico State Fair entry in and found a pleasant surprise: the final, final deadline was the 20th, not the 19th, so I took a deep breath and got back to work, secure in knowledge that if I didn’t finish it, I still had one more day.

So I spent most of yesterday working on the Flamboyant granny square purse, but with a reprieve instead of Damocles crochet sword hanging over my head, I found myself second guessing just exactly how I would do the straps for the handles, and that added at least 90 minutes to my efforts. But when all was said and done, I did it exactly the way I had planned to do it when I went to sleep on Sunday night.

Shortly before sunset, with the granny square purse nearly done, I attached the handles, wove in the twenty ends, and then I trimmed them.

Then, this morning, after a cup of coffee and the light of a new day, I got this photo of one side of the purse:

and this photo of the other side of the purse:

The only thing I had left to do was drive to the state fairgrounds and turn it in.

How I managed to drive past the state fairgrounds without seeing it the first time, is a mystery to me but eventually, after a brief detour at the entrance for racing horses, I made my way to Gate 3 on the western most edge of the fairgrounds.

The woman I met who worked at the parking booth seemed to know exactly who I was and why I was there, and she gave me flawless directions. I was able to make my way to the parking lot Home Arts building without a hitch, and it was there that I first entered the world of the New Mexico State Fair.

To start, there is no online registration. You simply walk into the building and go up to the first registration counter and fill out the number of sheets you will need based on the number of different areas you are entering your crafts.

Next, you take that sheet of paper over to another table where people with computers assigned you an exhibitor number.

Finally, you wait your turn in line for your designated craft, and an actual person helps you decide what specific category applies to the project you want to enter, and then they finish the paper work and send you on your way.

But while I was waiting to get my paper work completed, a woman saw my work, gave me her name and number, and invited me to join the New Mexico Crochet Guild. Then, I learned that one of the woman working at the table I was sitting at was the superintendent of the Home Arts division of the state fair.

She was both delightful and extremely knowledgeable without being the least bit cranky.

With my entry safely delivered to the state fair, I came home wondering “what’s next?”

Lucky for me, I had some yarn with a ready answer just waiting to be crocheted: