Yesterday, as the result of a sequence of events, vacuum in hand, I ended up channeling my maternal grandmother as Thanksgiving 2016 neared.

Nana, as she was known to her grandchildren, was — among other things — a meticulous housekeeper.

Everything had a place; mine was outdoors, so when the sun rose on one of the many summer days I spent at her house, I would get dressed, eat my breakfast, and head outside to climb trees, mow the lawn, trim the hedges, and when I was overheated from those entertainments, sit on the cool, cool concrete of her front porch (which I memorialized in this panel of my 2014 North Carolina State Fair project):

Because I was doing my job — namely amusing myself outdoors — I never saw Nana do the work she obviously must have done to keep her house in the order she kept it

As if by magic, floors were scrubbed, counters wiped, beds were made, furniture dusted, and of course, carpets were vacuumed.

And yesterday, when I got out the vacuum to get up a bit of debris on the floor, my long departed grandmother seemed to get hold of my brain and suddenly I was seeing the world through her eyes.

I would vacuum one space until my bagless vacuum was filled, and then once I had emptied the vacuum another area in need of vacuuming would catch my eye, and so it went for much longer than I had planned.

Before I knew it, the day was over.

So when the sun rose on this new day, I was thankful for (among other things) once again being able to ignore the copious amount of dog and cat hair that accumulate in my house, and instead, I turned my attention to the center panel of my now 2017 North Carolina State Fair project.

I had begun tricking out one piece of the panel by working multiple bullion stitches that were supposed to be a bunny.

I had gotten this far when I set it aside for reasons I no longer recall:

This morning, with a cup of coffee nearby, I put in the quarter hour needed to finish bunny and weave in the attendant ends:

With that piece now done, I googled “French knots” and then searched images and came across a sheep that I thought looked really cute.

Using another piece from the crazy quilt center panel, I first outlined the French knot sheep to be with French knots:

which I then began to fill it in:

Before I could get it finished, however, the sun began to set on the day, and it was time for me to put my crochet up — a passion for which I am most thankful.

Related: The last day of summer