This morning when I headed out with my dog Clooney for his first walk of the day, he had a particular spring in his step that he gets when the weather changes from summer to fall. His nose twitched as he enjoyed the crisp air and he fairly pranced along as we walked, meanwhile, I ruminated on how to handle all the space that is yet to be filled in my state fair project.

By the time we returned home, some of Clooney’s enthusiasm for the impending change of seasons had rubbed off on me, and it was with renewed vigor that I returned to my efforts to figure out how I would fill all of the space between the objects I have crocheted so far for my 2015 North Carolina State Fair project.

Yesterday, I had and idea in my head that I thought might work, and I tried one variation on my plan which was a nine-patch of three-round granny squares.

While I found the granny squares engaging:

I quickly realized that as a practical matter, it was be nightmare to figure out how to combine all of the possible color arrangements with all of the objects.

When it became clear to me that I could not possible execute this plan even if I lived to be 200 and were able to work on it sixteen hours a day, I decided I needed to give it more thought, so I got to work weaving in the ends of the first 8 rounds of a spoked crochet mandala for Wink (you can read more about that here), and when I got all of the ends woven in, I started work on the ninth round:

After getting partway through, I decided to experiment with a different course of action for the pieces to fill the space between, and so I got work.

Because I was in a hurry to see how it would look, I made my first efforts on four four-round granny squares:

While I still don’t know exactly how I am going to assemble all of this, at least now I know what pieces I need to make to fill the spaces.