Fair Entries 2015

Once again, I got myself to the fair grounds by 8 (am) and managed the canning entries. I check them in, organize them for the judges and then record the results.

Then I turn all the tags over and attach the ribbons so they are ready for display. I left a little after 3 this year.

I also managed to enter a few things myself.

Here is the list of what I am submitting for judgment:

1. Pullover sweater (adult): Ombre Yarneater

This sweater was looking quite worn (since I wore it) so I decided to shave off the pills. I had the thought that I should be able to use hair clippers to cut the pills off. So I tried it. Well, it's very effective. But if you catch the threads, you can easily cut them...or four of them. It was worst where the yarn got really thin in the "thick and thin" sections.

So I cut the yarn in one sleeve in four places. I decided not to have a meltdown because the sweater is made up of so many different yarns already. I pulled out the bag that had leftover yarns from this project and was pleasantly surprised to see that I still had extra of the yarn that was cut. It still wouldn't match exactly because the yarn colour and thickness changes so much, there would be no way to find a piece that was the same as the section that was cut. But again, since everything varied all the time, you didn't notice.

I essentially duplicate stitched from a few stitches to the right of the cut, past the cut and then a few stitches to the left. After I block the whole sweater again, I couldn't even find the spots unless I looked for the ends on the back side. So hopefully it will not catch the judge's attention. :)

2. Vest (adult)

I knit this for Troy either back in our engagement or early marriage days. I think it was always a little small on him. He liked it but did not wear it often.

When I pulled it out of "deep storage" to wash and block it for the fair I noticed that it biased terribly. Even though the fabric is knit straight, it wants to distort diagonally. So one bottom corner of the back, for instance, was way lower than the other. I believe this can sometimes happen with yarn that is unbalanced. (You can read more about it here on TECHknitter's great blog.)

Includes fake pockets and everything! :)

For now, I blocked it to try and get it to straighten out. I think the long term solution will be to ravel the garment and reuse the yarn.

3. Pullover sweater (child): Wool-Aid Sweater

4. Hat and mitten set: Dwindling cables set

Of course, they really are the same colour.

Ok, I spent about two hours Friday night looking for these mittens. They were not with the hat and they were no where to be found. I had convinced myself that they fell off of the shelf and into the garbage can that sits below and had been thrown out. I was devastated and bummed. Not only did it take me about two years to finish them but I hadn't even gotten to wear them yet! No, actually the worst part was that I finished them for the fair and now I couldn't enter them.

But I kept looking. In ridiculous places. In the same places. And eventually I found them in a plastic bag with something completely unrelated. I think I did that when we blew insulation in the attic. So the mittens were dust-free, but almost lost "forever."

5. Any item from handspun yarn: Etoile Hat

6. Any other knitted article: Pennant Skirt

Obviously a picture from before it was finished. After blocking it hangs just how I was hoping...looking like nice regular pleats. I finished the knitting in late June but just put in the elastic and closed up the casing this week. (Once again the fair deadline gets things done!)

7. Quilt--twin size, machine quilted: Orange and Grey Zig Zag Quilt

8. Raffle quilt block: Bear Paws with a surprise

 Ok, I did promise you a surprise on my quilt block.

I had the idea to applique a bear onto the block. My first idea was to use the dark brown (a little more suitable for a black bear) and put it right in the centre, but the dark colour wouldn't show up against the blue and green. So after trying out other browns in my stash, I came back to the golden tan colour already in the quilt. Troy convinced me that having it off-centre would be good and I came to agree with him.

I found a bear silhouette that I liked online, printed it the size I wanted, and then traced it onto the fabric. I sewed it on with traditional needle turn applique. All done with very little drama this year!

Oh, and I used a lot of starch on this piece both before cutting and piecing and after it was finished, and it feels great. Let's hope the judges agree.

9. Tomato Juice
No picture here, but I did one nice bottle of tomato juice last summer and saved it for the fair. But there are a few seeds so I think they will mark me down for that. It will depend what the competition is. (I have at least been shaking it so it's not separated.)

10. Photograph - black and white: animal

11. Photograph - colour: animal

They changed the rule this year and you can only enter one picture into each section (black and white or colour) instead of each class (subdivisions of sections). So that will be a lot fewer entries this year. If I were worried about ribbons, I would enter in the classes that get a lot fewer entries ("abstract" or "digitally manipulated") but I decided to go with my favourite pictures instead.

And that's everything this year. I'll let you know next week how I did!!

County Fair Quilt Block

Yes, it's almost time for the Cass County Fair again. (The 164th!) It opens August 3rd and runs through the 8th, which means I have to have my projects ready to turn in on August 1st.

I have a number of projects I am trying to finish up and prepare for entry, and one that I didn't even start until last night was the raffle quilt block.

I bought the $5 fabric pack last year and the theme was "Up North." I had a few ideas to do with the Mackinac Bridge but I couldn't get excited about a landscape or applique project. I finally decided to do a Bear Paw block. Bears live up north, right? (Right?)

I'll skip to the end and show you my final block:

I put it together in one evening. It is 12.5" this year (I swear), except for a tiny notch out of the right side. (At about the mid point. Don't pretend you can't see it.) But I'm not replacing that piece and will take my chances with how strict the judges are. (They are strict.)

Here is a close up to show the fabric a little better:

The kit came with a dark blue, a green with red dots and a brown and tan with the same vaguely-animal stripe on it. Oh, and the pale pale blue that I used on the outside of the block. I really wish they would chose some more modern, or at least bright and cheery fabrics one year. They are always the same dark drab tones. Ok, ok, I'll stop criticizing before another person asks me why I participate if I hate it so much. (I don't.)

Here is the basic unit of the block:

Make four of those, add the sashing and you're done.

I followed this great tutorial by Delaware Quilts. Except I did the half-square triangles eight at a time instead of four. I followed the Fons and Porters tutorial here for that. (The key formula is that your starting square is 2 times the finished block size plus 1.75".) It worked great except for the missing notch on the right side and I think that was because the block got distorted when I was marking it with a pencil. (Not their fault.)

If I did different colours in each corner, then the four at a time would have been perfect. But since I matched opposite corners, I needed eight total and why not do them all at the same time then!? :)

If all goes according to plan, my block is not actually finished. I have a surprise in store. I'll show you later, assuming it works out!

In Which I Realize It IS Me (and the Construction of a Quilt Block)

I mentioned that I bought a kit for the 2014 county fair raffle block. (By the way, they got their raffle license on Thursday of the fair and were able to sell some tickets. I didn't know and didn't have a chance to win, but at least we know the blocks will be made up into a quilt. I found out on Sunday when I went to pick up my things.)

Anyway, back to the quilt block. I bought the kit on the Saturday when I was helping with the check in and judging. The theme is the underground railroad and the entries are limited to the 15 blocks listed and pictured in the kit. All piecing (no applique)...yay!! In case you're not familiar with the story, these blocks were touted as a code for helping slaves to escape along the underground railroad. It's complete bunk but people love the story so the tradition has continued. (Read here for a thorough debunking.)

Over the weekend I studied the blocks because I was determined to not have a last minute entry next year. Plus I was interested in the blocks. My personal choice was quickly narrowed down to two of them, the Carpenter's Wheel and the North Star. I started googling how to do the Carpenter's Wheel because there were several possibilities that came to mind.

A Google Image search shows lots and lots of blocks that look like this:

Source

Which was not the way it looked in the kit. I liked the ones on the web better and started to wonder if the blocks had to look exactly like in the kit's picture, or if it was a block with the same name but an alternate design would that be ok. I debated about asking about it, and in the end, when I saw the superintendent on Monday night at the fair, I asked her.

I showed her the picture above and explained that that was the most common way the block was done according to my web search. No, she said, it has to be exactly like the kit. We talked for a few more minutes but I basically got the same response to anything I said: It has to be exactly like the kit. "Even if the kit is wrong," I thought.

Anyway, I quickly dropped it and debated whether to do the block I liked better the "wrong" way or my second choice. Then I did a search for the underground railroad quilt and got this result. It shows the Carpenter's Wheel just like it was in the kit. That made me feel better that the fair didn't have it wrong, but I think it's funny that not only is the story behind the quilt complete bunk, but they can't even get the blocks right.

Then I took a big breath, decided I wasn't going to create problems that don't need to exist and started my own Carpenter's Wheel block in the design prescribed by the kit. It's the most complicated piecing of all the choices and I plan to do it the "purist" way.

The picture above shows the block done in all half-square triangles. All the seams are straight and you can assemble it in a grid. But all the sections that are made of one fabric are chopped up into little triangles. So if you have a print, there will be no continuity. I decided that was not for me. I will make a pattern with as big of pieces as possible, even if it meant tonnes of inset seams. Bring it on!!

As always, first step was to make a plan:

I drew out the pattern (over a grid so I could easily see measurements), and listed out the pieces I would need to cut. The finished block needs to be 12", so each square on the grid will finish at 1.5". That's small, but not tiny.

Then I pulled out the quilt scrap box and started pulling out some options.

(Because there was no way I was going to make my first attempt on the kit fabric!)

I got the pieces cut and sorted:

and even "dry fit" the center star to make sure it was going to fit together the way I thought it would:

(Plus it's just kind of pretty.) I was very proud of myself for noticing that these pieces were mirror images of each other (by colour group) before I cut out the first set. Yay, me!

That was Tuesday evening.

Next was the plan of assembly, what parts had to be attached to other parts, and then how it would go together:

I would start in the center with the star. A lot of inset seams here. The most important thing to do is to mark all your 1/4" seam allowances. Do not let yourself think you can eyeball it! Especially on these angled pieces.

Lay two together,

and start sewing toward the corner. Start at a distance that you'll do 3-4 stitches before you get to the corner:

Then stop the needle right at the corner with the needle in the down position:

If you can see your next stitch is going to take you past the corner marking, then turn your stitch length down. (I did these seams at "2", but often switched to "1" at the end to make sure the needle hit in the right spot.)

Then pivot the piece and sew the length of the seam:

When you get to the other end, once again put the needle down right at the intersection, pivot the piece and sew 3-4 stitches the other way to anchor it.

Normally I would anchor the end of the seam by going back and forth, but machines are a little unpredictable at when they start changing direction after you push the button. Often they take one more stitch than you expect and that will be death to your inset seams. This pivoting method may seem like more work, but it doesn't take much and it's very reliable.

I continued around the star, adding pieces and here you can see it finished with the side pieces being dry fit:

That was Wednesday morning.

Next step was to fit in the side pieces in the same manner. Line up one edge, sew it from intersection to intersection, then sew the next edge. I soon had all the side pieces done and was looking at adding the corner pieces:

Apparently I didn't photograph the corner pieces being
assembled but I did them as two squares plus a rectangle.
One less seam than doing a 4-patch.

That is where I ran into a problem. The corner pieces didn't fit onto the star--the star was too narrow.

That stopped me in my tracks. I looked at the plan and thought about it some more but I just couldn't see it. It was obvious what was wrong, but if I didn't see where it came from then it was going to be hard to fix it.

Not ready to quit, however, I started doing the outside "border" strips. First thing was to assemble the flying geese units. My favourite method so far is to use squares to add triangles to the base rectangle. So you start with a rectangle the size of your finished piece. You add a square that matches the length of the shorter side. Lay the square on the rectangle so three sides line up and sew along the diagonal, point to point.

Yes you need to mark the diagonal. If you think you can eyeball it you are a proud fool destined to fail. (Ask me how I know!)

Once the seam is sewn, cut off the excess (the part toward the corner of the rectangle, not the  middle).

Usually I do use a rotary cutter, but I didn't have mine handy so I used my scissors. Not quite as accurate or straight, but since the seam is already sewn, it doesn't really matter now does it.

Then you flip the triangle-that-was-a-square and press it with your wooden "iron." You can also use your fingernail, but the wooden tool works great, it's pretty and cheap. So why not.

Then put a square of the same dimensions on the other side and sew across the diagonal:

Note that the seams have to come to a point in the middle. Sewing across the other diagonal would not make a flying geese unit.

Cut off the excess:

Press over with the wooden iron and you have a flying geese unit:

I chain stitched these (meaning I did the same seam on all eight pieces before moving to the next step) so it was quick to get them done. (It would have been quicker if I hadn't put four of the blocks on the wrong side of the rectangle the first time, but that is what a seam ripper is for.)

Then I lined up the flying geese units with some solid squares and rectangles in the appropriate order and got the border strips done:

That was Wednesday night.

The whole evening while I was sewing I was also pondering my error in the star measurements. By the next morning, I thought I had it figured out. First step in any case was to remove the side pieces from the star, and so my seam ripper got another work out:

Pieces separated.

Then I worked on my new pattern. I thought my problem was the bottom edge (as seen in the following picture) of the star piece. It was supposed to finish at 1.5" and so I cut it at 2". With 1/4" seam allowances that should work.

But I started to think that it only works when the seam is perpendicular to the cut. In the star piece those seams are at a 45^ angle and so just adding 1/4" on each side wasn't going to work. What was?

Well, I decided to do this a more empirical way instead of a theoretical way. I drew the finished piece I wanted on the paper above. Then I went around and added the 1/4" seam allowances. Then I measured the length of the bottom edge. Sure enough, it was closer to 2.25" than 2". I was ready to start again. Except that I had to go to work.

That was Thursday morning.

When I first cut the star pieces, I was able to measure the 2" on the bottom edge on my cutting mat's grid. But it doesn't have 1/4" markings. What to do?

I laid my ruler on the mat so that its markings matched up with the mat's. Then I laid the strip I was cutting against the edge of the ruler so that the point was at 1/4" mark.

Then I could count back 2 1" blocks back on the mat and cut my other edge:

Worked like a charm.

Then I marked the seam allowances again

When I cut the pieces out from the other fabric, I was having trouble figuring out the angles and directions to cut them in a mirror image to the first. Then I realized I could follow the exact procedure as long as I laid the fabric wrong side up.

Again, worked like a charm, and I once again took the time for a dry fit:

I switched two of the purple pieces in the final layout
as I wanted the two with the most purple to be opposite
each other. I know it's only a practice piece, but
you still have to care!

Then I started sewing the star. I certainly did not sew the whole thing before I checked if I had fixed the problem. As soon as I had two pieces together, I added a side piece:

Add one more star piece and I could check the "troublesome" corner pieces:

Looks like a perfect fit...yay!!

I continued around and got the center portion done:

I finished at 10:58, and seeing as it wasn't quite bedtime, I continued on. I added the border strips and here it is, fresh off the machine:

Although it was now 11:17 and I really should go to bed, there was no way I was going to be able to sleep without pressing it!!

I took my time and got all the seams going in the right order.

(I had been pressing them with the wooden iron as I went so I knew they had all worked out--meaning they alternated directions in all the right places.) But boy, it was nice to get them flat!!

I even managed a nice little pinwheel in the center of the star where the eight seams meet:

And voila! a Carpenter's Wheel block:

That was Friday evening.

What a lot of work for one block!! I took measurements and it is 12.5" on one side (the correct measurement to finish at 12"), but the other side is only 12.25". That might get me disqualified. I also noticed the star is a little puffy and I had to ease it into the seams that were too short before. So now when I cut into the kit fabric, I will know to back off the size a little bit on those pieces. (This is why we practice!)

I also may make the border pieces a little too wide so that I can trim them back down if necessary. Cheating a little, I know, but that's what will get the job done.

Although I'm raring to get this done and put it in the can for next summer, a few other things around the house are calling for my attention. Will I be able to wait?? Tune in next time to find out! :)