Yesterday I had a dental appointment, and while I waited for the dentist, I took advantage of the overhead light to weave in the ends of the black yarn I had used to make the spiky beanies, and as I came within reach of completing that mission, another mission loomed on the horizon.

The mission at hand involved black yarn. Black (and other dark yarns like navy, and brown) allow a crocheter to create awesome effects, but it can be difficult to see the stitches.

This is part blessing (mistakes are difficult/impossible to see), and part curse (mistakes are difficult/impossible to see). Depending on the nature of the error in question (cosmetic or structural), you can either blithely move on, or you can end up having to frog (unravel), and rework the stitches with a combination of by guess and by golly if you can’t get decent light.

The dentist’s light solved all of my working with black yarn problems, and by the time I left the office, I had nearly all of the black yarn ends woven in with plenty of daylight left to take care of the others, which eventually, I did.

Here is the result:

And here is a photo of one of the completed hats:

With the hats done, I grabbed my address book, a pink Sharpie pen, and headed out the door, hats in hand, to go to the post office, so I could get the hats to their new owners.

With that bit of business taken care of, I once again turned to my other, looming mission: my 2012 North Carolina State Fair project, or my 2012 NCSTP as one friend referred to it in an email.

I made a couple of large squares, a large triangle, myriad rectangles, and several small squares.

One thing I had not yet done, however, was assemble all of the parts of the multi-color motif.

I had designed the motif pieces to fit closely, carefully counting the edge stitches and making sure everything matched up — in theory, but in practice, I had yet to assemble an entire motif.

I started by tackling the finishing details on this center square of my multi-color-motif-to-be:

which left me with this:

Next, I finished crocheting the pieces I would need for a trial run assembling the second motif and laid them out:

Then the reckoning began. Would the pieces fit together nicely when assembled?

I started by attaching the rectangles:

Then finished the motif by attaching the four remaining small, textured squares:

Now that I officially have all of the details and bugs worked out of this second motif, I am hoping that from here on out is smooth sailing.

In the meantime, I had better grab my hook and get ready to make 41 more multi-color motifs.