The next thing

Leslie Stahlhut

Yesterday I found myself outside the house for several hours. I had known about the time I would have to be gone from the house and had planned accordingly — I was ready for the next thing, whatever that thing might be.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my now 2017 North Carolina State Fair project is no longer as portable as it once was. The remaining pieces are small, but must be seen in relation to the other pieces.

Fortunately, I was able to identify several areas of the center panel that I could pick up and take with me to work on while I was gone from the house.

The first thing I needed was a place to work, and after finding a suitable coffee shop, I ordered a medium latte to help fuel my work:

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A latte to fuel my crochet

I started off with something easy, namely weaving in ends:

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The back side of the lower left-hand corner of the center pal

The next thing I did was crochet a piece that would fit into a specific gap. It took awhile, but eventually, I got it done:

A custom crochet piece made at a coffee shop then I was ready to do the next thing
A custom crochet piece made at a coffee shop then I was ready to do the next thing

After the day’s errands were completed, I even had a chance to seam the custom piece into place, so that when I finally got to my crochet today, I was ready to move onto the next thing:

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Where I was early this afternoon

The next thing that I had identified was a particularly trouble some gap just above one of the piece of crochet “paper” that are central to the center panel. I worked my first effort in CraftSmart Value fuchsia, but something about the effort fell short of my expectations:

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My first effort at filling the gap just above the crochet sheet of paper

Something about the color and the suggestion of a ripple did not, in my estimation, work for the piece as a whole, so I made my way upstairs to the crochet empire and got a skein of Red Heart Super Saver medium thyme, and Red Heart Classic medium brown. The medium thyme ended up being a no go, and while this effort with the medium brown did not work:

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My second effort at filling the gap just above the crochet sheet of paper

Eventually I was able to get something that did.

Which left me with a boot-shaped gap with odd curves and angles with a narrow pointy end which went into the interior of the piece. I had thought I would be able to document how I did it, but after the fifth or six attempt at coming up with a suitable piece, I was glad to have it done, and I did not bother to write down the “directions” because I can’t imagine that anyone will ever again need a piece quite like this:

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The elusive crochet piece

I had wondered when I would finally feel the urgency that I feel when I near the end of a piece.

I did not feel it in 2015, I did not feel it in 2016, and it really wasn’t until the last week that I began to see how this panel would come together that I began to feel that mixture of anxiety and determination that helps me bring a project to fruition.

Now I need to survey what is left to be done:

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My progress at the end of the day

and figure out what to do next.

Related blog post: State Fair season 2015https://crochetbug.com/state-fair-season-2015/