County Fair Entries and Results, 2022

The Cass County Fair is going on this week. I did my usual stint checking in the canning entries and helped in other departments as needed.

I, myself, didn't have that many entries this year. Although I've been doing some "making", it's not as much as previous years and I'm not sure I finished any big projects. Or none that I still have in my possession. :)

Realizing the fair was coming up, I thought I'd better get to that quilt block for the raffle quilt! About two weeks before the fair, I decided on my idea (the only one that was going through my head), looked up some pictures for ideas and got started.

The theme this year was "Keep on Trucking" and they gave us a few pieces of fabrics including this piece of novelty fabric as the focus fabric:

I really didn't see how it would be very useful for piecing (with the wide variety of colours and values), and there were very few whole trucks for applique. What to do??

I ended up appliqueing a scene. I drew out the scene, copied it and cut apart the copy to know what shape to cut out the pieces. I used the original copy to place the pieces in the right place. I sewed it all together with a buttonhole stitch.

You have to use each of the fabrics, so I cut out the most complete truck from the focus fabric and put it on the road.

There are things I would have changed about the design, but the cream background fabric is the only one that is big enough to span the whole width of the block. The rest are only 10"x10".

In the end, my block was awarded honorable mention and was chosen to be included in the quilt.

There were a lot of block entries this year so I was gratified to make it.

Here are all the blocks that will be in the quilt.

I was surprised how many pieced blocks there were. Generally there are more appliqued ones.

Here are the top six:

And here's a close view of the top block. There wasn't a person who looked at the blocks that didn't point out this one as their favorite! It's beautiful.

The focus fabric apparently makes up the flowers in the back of the truck and the railing. I find it interesting that the block they liked best used the least amount of the focus fabric and you can't recognize it at all. This year's theme is "Keep Calm and Grill On" and it includes a novelty fabric with grilling paraphernalia. It's going to be just as hard to work with.

Here is the quilt from last year's blocks.

Where's my block? I couldn't find one in my pictures or Instagram feed from last year and then I remembered that I couldn't find the kit. I remember all the little squares with different animals so I either lost the kit or they had run out by the time I went to buy one. I can't remember!

My second entry was my Bright Stars on Black quilt.

It was in the category of king/queen/full--machine quilted--pieced and won first! I finished this a few years ago, but it was the same year I finished my blue and white elephant quilt and I had entered that instead. There were two quilts in this category and the other one had quilting issues.

This quilt actually has machine and hand-stitched quilting but I entered it in machine quilting because I know they value hand-quilting more. Any machine quilting would disqualify it in hand-quilting, but hand-quilting wouldn't hurt my position in the machine quilting category. People are funny, right?

That's it for hand crafts!! A far cry from my usual number.

I also entered two photographs. This one from a senior picture session:

which did not place,

and this black and white lakeshore shot,

which also didn't place.

I thought I could only enter one colour and one black and white photo, but they've changed the rules. Maybe I should have looked at the fair book more closely and sometime before the week that the entries are due! :)

I had a nice time walking around the fair after I worked the Home Arts table on Wednesday. I enjoy walking through the animal barns and had to check out the new goat barn that someone I know had worked on.

On Monday evening I was with a group of people and mentioned I volunteered and the fair. She asked, "Is that the one with the baby animal barn?" I said, ya the fair has one, not realizing that every fair doesn't have one. She was so excited! She had heard about this a couple years ago but lost track of what fair it was. She has looked online and asked anyone who mentioned a county fair and finally, I had given her the answer! She immediately started planning which day to go to the fair this week. Lovely to make someone's day so easily! :)

Results of the County Fair

This is first of three posts about this year's county fair Folk Arts division. Herein I will lay out the results for my own entries. In following posts I will address some opinions I have about how things are done (warning: Catty Christina just might make an appearance, but I'll try to keep her in check), and then explain and ask advice about the annual quilt block contest.

But first things first, and I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. You will remember that I entered 10 handmade items and two photographs:

[Note: I've edited the original post so that now when you click on a picture, you can see a better photo of the actual item. When there are two items in a fair picture, I've had to chose just one to show in the detailed pic.]

1. Candleflame Scarf

Second place ribbon in the category of knitted hat, scarf or mitten set. (I wasn't sure if it had to be a set of all three or if the "set" only applied to the "mitten." It was confusing.) I never did locate the blue ribbon, so maybe they liked it but gave me second because I didn't make a set? Who knows. I wish the judges would leave remarks. But I'll save that for a later post...

2. Embroidered Baby Sweater
Entered in the category of knitted baby sweater, hat and bootie set. Again, I wasn't sure if it had to be a set of all of them or just a bootie set. I'm thinking it was the former, because really? no ribbon for this adorable item? I never did find any ribbons I could be sure were in the same category. Since mine was prominently displayed at the front, I will assume they really regretted not being able to ribbon it. (Please don't disillusion me; it makes me feel better.) *

3. Lace Slippers
Second place ribbon in the knitted miscellaneous item. Again, I couldn't tell what it had to go up against.

4. Pencil Sketch Camisole (left) & 5. Sahara

First place ribbons in the categories of knitted vest (left) and knitted blouse. (They look so funny because they're hanging over the end of a bed with a bar for a footboard.)

6. Mariah (bottom) & 7. Embellished Plarn Bag
First place ribbon in the category of knitted cardigan or coat and third place ribbon in the category of crocheted miscellaneous item (the white bag with flowers on the upper shelf).

8. Reversible Cable Shawl (left) & 9. Snowflake Illusions Blanket
Second place ribbon in the category of knitted baby afghan. I was worried the judges wouldn't notice the illusion effect, but I think they did since it's the only one they pulled the bottom out like that. You can just make out a snowflake on the very bottom of the striped section. **

10. Knit Metal Bangle
Entered in the category of jewelry. (What else?) It was not in the knitting class but a separate one, so the bangle was up against all methods of making jewellery, not just knitting.

11. Kitchener Stitch photograph
First place ribbon in the category of colour photograph: still life. If you want to win, enter big. I've never seen a ribbon on a 4x6, even though I've seen lots and lots of 4x6s entered. I still had this one framed up from the church show last fall.

12. He Lost his Head at the Beach photograph

Entered in the category of colour photography: head or figure. I don't think anyone could have entered the category more exactly than I (it's a head or figure), but I still didn't win. I didn't really believe this was what they were after, but I am amused enough by the picture that I wanted to enter it. Maybe next year I'll enter it under "seascapes." Think it'll have a better chance of winning then?

This is the photograph, btw, that did get chosen by the Jones Soda Company. It was printed on some of their strawberry-lime (my favourite) bottles. I had a lot of people looking, but we never found it in the stores to buy. The company doesn't send you bottles with your picture on it, but they do send you about 10 labels. That was cool enough for me. (You could do this too. Just take a good picture, submit it here, and then have a few of your friends rate it really high.)

All and all, I guess I'd have to admit that was a pretty good showing at the fair. I did not get "Grand Champion, Best in Show" in knitting and the woman who did is good. (I'll show you some of her stuff later.) But she should know...I have my eye on her now! Watch out!

One funny incident while I was checking out everything at the fair (not just my stuff). I heard two women talking and caught only part of the conversation, but heard something like, "There's Christina again...wow...[something something]...a lot of stuff." At that point they were pointing at my Mariah and had seen the Cami and Sahara.

I decided to identify myself before they said something I would regret hearing. (Like, "She does a lot, but I don't like any of it..." or pick your favourite foot in the mouth phrase if the person you were talking about suddenly said who she was.) They were very kind however and said nice things to me.

Signed,
Clickety-Clack, the Machine

ETA:

* When I picked the items up from the fair, I saw the note a judge had thoughtfully written for me on the back of the entry tag: Entered in wrong category; could not be judged. (So I was right! Well, wrong about the category, but right about why there was no ribbon.) (And, again, please do not disillusion me by pointing out that I still may not have gotten a ribbon if I had entered the right category. I'm just not ready to hear that.)

** And as for the pink shawl, the judges wrote a note that the item was soiled. (They don't accept soiled or excessively worn items, at their discretion.) I thought I had looked the item over because I was considering washing it. I guess I should have either looked closer or just washed it to be thorough. I'll assume putting the note on it means that they liked it enough to consider it for a ribbon. I have no illusions that it would have definitely won.

Photography Show

Our church has a rotating art show in our gathering space and this fall, the director decided to put out an open invitation to church members. It was a lot of fun to gather pictures to submit and then to see the photos from all the other members. Not only do you get to learn who are the amateur photographers in the church, but you also get to learn some of where they've been and what they've seen.

I submitted a wopping seven pictures which was a bit much, but I had them ready and this being the first show like this, I didn't know if we would fill the space. But we sure did!

The first two were taken while putting up the trusses for my husband's shop. The first here was taken the night we put up the 43rd and  last truss. It is lit by our yard light which has a very odd green cast to it:

This second one was taken while were putting them up. I have always been fascinated by the symmetry of trusses.

Kitchener Stitch

was a close up of grafting a scarf I made for the Special Olympics Project. I love the contrast of the metal needle with the wooden needle and all the fuzzy yarn. I printed this one up as an 11x14 and it really popped.

Bee on Sunflower

was taken one year when my sunflowers really went gang busters. They were at least 8 feet tall, but this one was short enough to let me get a nice close up.

East of Calvin Center
was taken along a road I travel often. I think I might get a series of "ditch landscapes" going sometime. This would be the first. It was taken in the spring but the colours look so cold and barren it's hard to believe.

First Frost

was taken last fall. I was out hanging laundry and looked around to see all the leaves in the grass just outlined in frost. I ran and got my camera after the clothes were up and caught a few images. I hadn't cleaned up my flowers yet so I also managed to get this Petunnia Margarita:
(This is the one that won the blue ribbon at the county fair--woo hoo!)

Everything I know about photography I've learned from my husband who was a newspaper photographer back in the day. My basic rules are 1. take a lot, keep only a few and 2. 90% of a successful picture is just being there. I.e. have your camera with you all the time if you want the opportunity to take good pictures. I use a Nikon Coolpix which is at least 5-6 years old, so certainly nothing fancy.

I just picked up the pictures today to take home and will be happy to be able to hang them up again in the space that I live.

-christina