After a very late night, followed by a very early morning — with not anywhere near enough sleep separating the two — I finally finished my 2014 North Carolina State Fair project.

Thankfully, just before I did go to sleep, I checked to make sure of the deadline for turning in projects and found that a change had been made since I had registered for the fair.

Where the original text had stated that all items could be turned in until 3:00 pm on October 13, when I checked online last night, I found that a new revised statement in bright red letters was clearly visible:

The piece I was working on had to be turned in by 12:00 pm today, not the previously described 3:00 pm.

Lucky for everyone involved, I worry about absolutely everything and take nothing for granted, because had I missed the deadline, I would not have had proof of the change (I did not think to take a screen capture of the original statement), I would have been beside myself angry, and my dear readers might have been reduced to viewing my mug shot and reading an entry about how I had been arrested for disturbing the peace instead of this blog post.

When I got up early this morning, I continued joining the panels using a slip stitch through the back loops of the stitches being joined, weaving in ends as I went along, and doing my best not to panic.

Around 10:30, a neighbor came over and took a lint roller to the project while I finished up one last seam and weaved in the resulting ends.

After getting this quick picture as we prepared to leave the house:

we made our way to the state fairgrounds, with me driving and her continuing in the effort to get as much pet hair off the finished project as possible.

When we arrived at the state fairgrounds, we made our way through the exhibition hall, and got my project turned in with at least 15 minutes to spare.

There are a number of things I had hoped to accomplish with this year’s state fair project, not the least of which was to tell (in some measure) the story of my grandmother’s life as I knew her, and while the final project is nothing like what I first conceived when I set out to make it, I learned a lot about myself these past ten-and-a-half weeks as I worked to bring her story to life, one stitch at a time.