Over this past weekend, I traveled to Madison County, Illinois, to both revisit with and meet my paternal grandmother’s family, and (as you might expect) I took my crochet along with me.

It must be genetic, because while the gathering was not huge, a second cousin (once removed), showed up with her knitting project in hand. Clearly, we are birds of a feather.

One challenge I am facing this state fair season is that instead of assembling the project as I usually do, in strips, this project is being worked from the center outward.

With all of the to-and-fro of going from my cousin’s house to the various destinations I wanted to go to (Circle B Alpacas, “Knit One, Weave Too” yarn shop, the cemetery where much of my paternal grandmother’s family is buried), I found it easier to continue to make more pieces than to try to put them together, and at some point, I began to investigate a design idea that came to me in my travels.

That investigation resulted in yet another Bauhaus Quilt block motif:

The Bauhaus Quilt block III motif was eminently portable, so I made another:

Then to get an idea of how they would work together, I set them side by side:

I love this new element and can hardly wait to figure out just how I will incorporate it into this year’s state fair project.

And while I did not get a lot of piecing done on the project over this weekend, I did add a round of 1 x 3 rectangles to what I had done previously:

My hope is that this is exactly the foundation I need to incorporate Bauhaus Quilt block III into my 2011 North Carolina State Fair project.