The 2017 State Fair Season is upon me.

Already three days in, and I have yet to figure out the particulars that tripped me up at the end of last year’s state fair season, but as I sort through all of the blog posts, all of the photos, and all of the pieces that grace my dining room table, I have a few ideas about what I will do once I have all of the pieces in one place and the table crochet ready.

Finishing all of the crazy quilt pieces is the top priority:

while tricking them out and assembling them are close behind, but the thing I will probably do (or more accurately, redo) first is the suit pips on the corners of what will be the finished piece:

While the current heart, diamond, spade, and club are recognizable(ish), in their current form they do not accurately depict that care my grandmother took with her own work on the original card table tablecloth that inspired these elements, and I would like to honor not only the form, but the seriousness of her effort.

So while I muse on how to go about finishing this homage to my paternal grandmother, I continue to work my latest crochet purse.

In addition to sorting out what have turned into joining “issues,” that affect both the lining and body of the bag, I managed to crochet a strap for the future bag.

Using eighteen of the nineteen color ways in the body of the bag (I did not include the variegated yarn that delineates the peace sign), this is where I was when I started to work on it this afternoon:

And in what seemed like no time, it was all crocheted:

But the one pose was somehow insufficient, so I got this one:

and this one as well:

I am hoping that finishing this purse generates mojo that can be used to complete the afghan, and that the process itself leads me somewhere that I need to go.