Our State Fair is a great state fair…

I think I’ve mentioned this almost everywhere I exist on the internet, but forgive me one more bit of crowing. My crochet work made the state fair! I’m entered in the Student Showcase of the California State Fair (July 15–July 31, if you’re in the area and want to see it), with the Forget-Me-Not Table Topper. This project (Ravelry link) has actually been a really long time in the making. 

Framed and ready for drop-off!

A few technical details before I talk about the story: it’s basically a granny square where I replaced some of the sides with filet for a while. If you want to do something similar, you need to leave edge clusters at each side so that the increase pattern can be maintained, and then there’s a setup row of all mesh before you can work the pattern. It’s basically working the opposite of the granny stitches; dc in each ch-space, and chain over each cluster (use the same number of chains as the number of stitches in the cluster, and be aware that this means it will be really not square). Then work your filet pattern, and then there’s another row of mesh before you go back to granny stitch, where you’re basically working your clusters into the chains from the mesh and chaining over the dc of the mesh. The edging is a variant on the Blackbird edging I made here, which means basically your standard edging mess except this time I used triple/treble crochet.

The story: I started this in October, intending to wear it for Homecoming as a shawl, then left off after about half of the filet pattern because I got bored. Sometime in the winter, I decided that I wanted to finish it for the state fair, but I still figured it would be a huge shawl. So I charted out a second filet pattern that fit the flower theme, messed around with it for a round or two, and promptly ripped it all back and decided it wasn’t worth it. I have no regrets about that. 

Anyways, I messed around with adding more granny square rounds, and eventually decided it worked pretty well as it was. So I added an edging, blocked it, and pretended I knew what it was. It was too small for a tablecloth or a shawl, so when the time came to submit it to the State Fair, I decided it was a table topper. The name, Forget-Me-Not, was because I couldn’t come up with a character from fiction (to fit my usual naming schemes) that fit it, and the filet is a floral pattern. Blue + Flowers = Forget me nots!

(Title for this post comes from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical State Fair.)

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