Setting my crochet intentions for the year has become something of an annual tradition for me.

When I find myself in the middle of the crazy that is the run up to the Christmas holiday, I find myself looking forward to the relative calm of the new year.

I also find myself looking back on what I did in the year just ending to figure out what I will do in the year that is beginning, and while my intentions are subject to change, they do serve as a guide to move me forward.

And it was in this spirit of preparing to set my intentions for the new year that I found myself taking an inventory of the squares I had completed for the Jean Leinhauser 101 Crochet Squares crochet-along that began in January of 2011.

It was a project that should have taken two years (less three weeks) to complete, but as with many other projects I take on, it was interrupted by other projects, and as 2012 drew to a close and the crochet-along “ended,” the squares I had completed languished in a cubby in the room that houses my crochet empire.

Until Monday.

By the time I had gone through the assorted squares, comparing them to those I had listed at Ravelry and Flickr, I had compiled this to-be-done-before-I-start-any-new-projects list:

Squares 7, 19, 21, 24, 49, 59 , 68, 82, 93, 94, and 101

and over the course of Monday and Tuesday, I made progress on the list, finishing all but the berries of the wreath-like design of Square 7:

getting a start on the center of Square 19:

Going into uncharted (for me) color territory with an assortment of variegated yarns for the foundation of Square 21:

and then finishing off with a cherry red flower to pull it all together:

Next I worked on Square 59, the center of which I found to be as compelling motif on its own:

as it was when completed:

For my last square of 2013, I went to the end of my to-do list and worked on Square 101:

I still have eight squares with varying degrees of work to be done on them before I can close the book on the 101 Crochet Squares crochet-along, but with each stitch, I get closer, and I feel confident that I will get them done before my next blog post, and I can set about making 2014 the year that I finally achieve the sense of order that has eluded me for so long.