Fair 2017

Ribbons!  It won!  First place and Best of Show!



I love getting ribbons.

Fair 2016

Hello hello!  The Fair started today!

I entered a few things this year, since I finally finished off some mostly-finished pieces that have been hanging around mocking me.

First up is the blue hardanger square-in-square piece that I designed last year.  I mounted it into a box lid, and it won a blue ribbon and Best of Show!  Yay hooray!!



Next up are the three snowflakes (actually two snowflakes and one eight-sided motif) that I made when I was experimenting with tatting finer threads.  The top and bottom ones are made with #40 thread, and the middle is my own design, made with #100 thread.  I wanted to put all three in the fair but you can only enter one item per class and lot, so I joined them together, put a hanging loop on, and called it a Christmas ornament.



Last up is the green and white edging that I made last year shortly after I re-taught myself to tat.  This has also been sitting in the drawer, just needing the fabric insertion added. So yesterday, at 4:30 pm, I pulled out the sewing machine and an old ripped pillowcase and finished it off.  Fair entries were due by 8:00 pm, but I thought I probably had enough time.  Because I'm not a procrastinator or anything, nope not me.

I traced a circle with a fortuitously-sized drinking glass, ran a narrow line of very close zigzag stitches around the circle with the machine, then hand-sewed satin stitches over that line, catching the inner picots of the tatted edging as I went.

I like the way it came out. This is pretty much exactly as I was envisioning it as I tatted.  The circle isn't perfect and I'll probably clean up that one point on the curve next week when I get it back from the fair, but I really like it.



The thread was my grandmother's, vintage #80 Star tatting thread that's probably 50+ years old. The pillowcase was my mother's, a really old pillowcase that I slept on as a child.  When I went to off to college in 1989 this was one of the two pillowcases that she sent with me, and I continued using it until about four years ago, when it ripped down the middle.  Throw it out?  I think not.  The cotton is so soft and worn and sun-bleached white that it's nearly transparent, and I knew I would eventually use it for something.

Grandma's thread, Mom's fabric, my tatted design.  Everything about this little doily makes me smile.

Ribbons!

I finally got my act together and entered some of my work in the county fair this year, for the first time since I have lived here.



The edelweiss hardanger doily got Judges' Choice! Yay!

The first year of fair-going after I moved here from Friday Harbor was somewhat of a shock.  In Friday Harbor, there is an extremely active textile guild and the fair was the highlight of the year.  The Fiber Arts (knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, felting/fulling, rug hooking, tatting, etc.) and Textile Arts (sewing, quilting, smocking, embroidery, etc.) entries take up an entire barn, which is one of the biggest display areas of the fair.

Here...not so much.  The entire crochet, embroidery, and knitting display this year was a counter about six feet long and two feet wide.  The quilts are in a different building.  There aren't even weaving or spinning categories at all.

Still, it's fun to have stuff on display and always exciting to win a ribbon!

Since last we spoke, I've been busy as a bee. Or a spider, perhaps, given my affinity for textiles. On to the list!

1) I finished spinning the silk hankies on my Tiger spindle, and am about halfway through plying them on Emma's spindle. I chose to ply on her spindle because it is larger and I'd like to see if I can ply everything into one large skein. I suppose I could have plied on my wheel, but I want my first spindle-spinning to be completely spindle-spun. It would be faster on the wheel, but that's not the point.

2) I finished spinning the cotton punis on my Tiger spindle. They are currently resting, tightly wound on their bobbins, hopefully letting all that lovely twist go dormant. I learned my lesson from plying the silk hankies - spindle plying is easier when the singles are not frantically energized.

3) I started spinning some silk top on my Tiger spindle. I needed a portable project to take with me to Friday Harbor this weekend, and none of my knitting projects appealed, so I dove around in my fiber closet and came up for air clutching some of the never-ending bundle of tussah silk top I bought years ago. I tucked an ounce or so in a quart size Ziploc, put the spindle in the same bag, and I was good to go for the weekend. It was nice to be able to spin without lugging the wheel around.

4) I plied all the warp yarn for the Sheep-to-Shawl. The spinning group on San Juan Island spent a couple months washing, dyeing, carding, and spinning the singles, then sent the whole pile to me to ply. It took me three evenings, they spun so much. Lovely stuff.

5) Last Thursday, I measured the warp for the Sheep-to-Shawl and sleyed it in my reed. Then I tied the rest of the warp chain to the reed, bundled the whole thing in a plastic bag, packed everything I need to weave (except the loom and bench) into a box and headed up to Friday Harbor. We made the Practice Shawl this past weekend! I'm the weaver this year, and am borrowing a loom so I don't have to cart mine all the way there. The loaner loom is also a Baby Wolf, though it only has four harnesses rather than my eight, so I knew the reed from my loom would fit in the loaner. That way, all I had to do on Friday was thread the heddles and beam the warp, and that only took two hours. I made the warp long enough for both the Practice Shawl and the Fair Shawl, so we're all ready to go.



The warp (Romney/Border Leicester dyed mossy green before blending with baby alpaca) went on the loom perfectly, with no tangles or broken threads. The weaving went well on Saturday, too, and I really like the finished product.



On the loom: 25" x 81"
Finished size: 20" x 72" plus 6" fringe
8 epi
8 ppi

The weft is undyed Romney/Border Leicester. The wool in the warp comes from a sheep named Buttercup, and the weft wool is from Bailey. They live on San Juan Island, at Shepherd's Croft Farm.

The weave pattern is another I doodled up myself. I like diamond-y twills. This one is fairly subtle in these yarns and at this scale, but I really like it.



I hemstitched the shawl while it was on the loom, then today I did a row of decorative knots before twisting the fringe. I also wet finished it this afternoon.



I like it. I like pretty much everything about this shawl. Even more than the actual physical object that I get to keep, I like that it was a collaborative effort of all my spinning friends and I like that we spent a wonderful day together making it.

Poof. The Fair is over for another year. It's always such a letdown. The Sheep-to-Shawl event was yesterday, and of the five years I've been participating, I think this was the prettiest shawl yet. It was a huck lace pattern on four shafts, alpaca and Border Leicester X blend, and I can't believe I didn't get a close up of the finished product. The pattern came out of Huck Lace: The Best of Weaver's. (I linked to Amazon there, but support your locals if you can....) The spinners did a great job on the yarn this year, very even and fine.



As for the judged exhibition, I did pretty well again. I got a blue ribbon, Best of Class in "Handspinning" and the Mary Fox Award (special award for excellence in handspinning) for my silk laceweight skein. I also got a blue ribbon, Best of Class in "Crochet With Handspun" and the Doris Oliver Award (special award for best use of handspun in a finished project) for the lattice crochet scarf. The judge commented on the lovely colors, so you get some credit, too, Liz! The Urchin Shawl got a blue ribbon and the People's Choice Award TWICE, on Wednesday and Saturday.

So that was fun. The rest of the judging had it's ups and downs. In addition to the silk yarn, the scarf, and Urchin, I had a huck lace stole, four other skeins of handspun (red Romney, blue merino, blue merino/silk, bulky merino/silk) and a crocheted potholder. The yarn all got blue ribbons, but the huck stole and the potholder both got red. Huh?

I have been trying to think of a way to write about this without sounding whiny, because I don't feel whiny about it, I feel mad. The judge was unfair and inconsistent. I was there for the whole judging, and I don't think that's an unreasonable assessment. Other people commented on it as well. Yes, she took a point off the potholder because there was a stain, and a point off the stole because there was a yarn tail I missed trimming (and I felt quite stupid when I saw that I had missed those errors), and I can ACCEPT losing those points because it was my own stupidness. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that there is no way that those two errors should have kicked those items down from blue to red ribbons. She had no real criticisms of the pieces other than what I said above. She said things like "wonderful hand," "nice selvedges," "a very elegant piece," and "fit for the opera" about the stole. She remarked that the potholder was good and thick, and liked the effect of Tunisian crochet with the variegated yarn. Then she turned around and scored them for red ribbons. And I just can't figure out how she came up with the numbers, even taking off for the stain and the yarn tail.

I also have a problem with the fact that she judged someone's fulled knitted slippers to be blue ribbon quality, when they were smelly from being worn, with dirt ground into the soles. And the woven rug that was so dirty that it showered the judging table with sand when we picked it up and had wiggles in the selvedges of more than an inch, was also judged to be blue ribbon quality. Neither of those had any points taken off in the "Clean and Neat" category.

I realize that judging is an inherently subjective activity, but she had no call to take 4 points off Urchin because the dyeing was purposely uneven (to emulate the uneven purple mottled swirls on a real urchin shell), and that fact was stated on the accompanying description sheet and photograph. That, in addition to the other odd point or two she took off, put Urchin only one point away from getting a red ribbon as well, despite the otherwise good comments! At some point, the judge's personal preference has to give way to the intent of the creator and how well the objective was achieved.

I think what really stings and makes me feel a bit bruised is that she had two "Honorable Mention" awards to give out at the end for things that deserved recognition. She gave them both in knitting, one for a scarf and one for a sweater. Yes, both were nice, but both were knit from published patterns, at large gauge. I'm sorry (and here's where the whiny part really comes out, though I don't mean it to), but neither of those were remotely as impressive as Urchin. A self-designed, 84" diameter lace shawl, knit on US 2 needles, which took more than 200 hours to knit, and is very well done (because it IS) is simply not comparable to a 10" x 50" worsted weight scarf from a commercial pattern.

Whatever, Ms. Judge. You lost a lot of credibility, not just with me but with a lot of the other entrants as well. I was not the only one to have issues with inconsistent scoring and the way the entries were judged. It's too bad, because I know she does a lot of fiber arts classes (regionally and nationally) and probably knows her stuff. Maybe she just had an off day.

As I said to one of my friends the day after judging, "I know how much I like Urchin, I know the value of the work that went into it, and that's all that really matters." And getting two People's Choice Awards from fairgoers' votes went long way to restoring my confidence in my pattern.

Anyway. Putting that behind me now.

Emma's favorite part of the Fair was the pony ride. This was her first time on a horse, and she was SO excited.



This was the first year that Emma really got into "doing the Fair." She went on a couple rides, had sno-cones, ate fair food (her first corn dog.....blech....though she liked it), and generally had a great time.

We also had a good time looking at the animals again this year. There weren't any lambs or piglets this year, but the pygmy goat kids were painfully cute, as always. We had to go look at them every day.



We saw alpacas (she calls them "puffs"),



And spent a lot of time in the sheep barn. There seemed to be a lot of Suffolk X and Targee X sheep there this year,



and the Icelandics are always sweet, though this one was unshorn until Saturday, when she was part of the sheep-shearing demonstration, and she looked uncomfortably warm.



And really, who could resist a face like a Cotswold's?

The Fair last week was great fun. Emma had so much fun walking around and looking at all the animals. The sheep and the goats were her favorites, I think. She was a little intimidated by the big animals- horses and cows- this year, but the small ones were "cute" and "sweet.".



She had a great time feeding bits of hay to the sheep and pygmy goats.



(I'd have to agree, pygmy goats are VERY cute and sweet.)

In addition to the Romney cross sheep pictured above, there was a quite varied selection of sheep breeds represented this year:


Cotswold


Dorset cross


Icelandic


Suffolk

There were also Cheviot, Southdown, and Border Leicester present, but I didn't get photos of them, due to a fast-moving toddler.

There was also a Welsh Highland cow, a very impressive beast. Amazing horns and shaggy coat.


All in all, a fun week. And I introduced Emma to the joys of fried dough.



We enjoyed it, though I'm glad this is a once-a-year indulgence. The ice cream and homegrown berries from the local island creamery were much better!

Whee!!!! The Fair is on, and....



I won!! Blue ribbon, Best of Class, and BEST OF SHOW for the sewing thread daffodil filet crochet panel, and.....



blue ribbon and Best of Class for Emma's handspun gansey, and.....



blue ribbon, Best of Class, and the special Mary Fox Award for Handspun Yarn for my laceweight tussah silk two-ply!!!!!!

(Mary Fox was a local handspinner/knitter/weaver/shepherd who was very active in the San Juan County Textile Guild, and had this award named after her when she passed away several years ago. I never knew her, but have seen some of the yarn she made, and have spun wool from the decendents of her flock of sheep.)

So exciting!!! More later!!! I need to stop using exclamation marks!!!

Emma and I trekked down to Puyallup on Friday, to go to opening day of the Fair. To see the fair, since I’ve never been in the four years we’ve been here, but more importantly, to see how my entries did! And guess what?!

I won!!! Again!! Wahoo! (…insert a mental picture of me dancing around in glee…)

The sewing thread doily won Grand Champion for Lace and Openwork!



And both that doily and the hardanger doily won Best of Category!



Wheee!

The fair was soooo crowded, though. We drove around town for 45 minutes before we found a parking lot that wasn’t full, and I got the very last spot in that one. All the on-street parking was taken, the lots were full, even the churches that were offering parking were full. It was an absolute zoo. I think the entire state of Washington was there. The western half, anyway.

Emma and I battled our way around to see all the exhibits in the Home Arts Building and Hobby Hall, and saw some of the livestock (“Sheep, Mama! Sheep!”) before Emma had had enough and was on the verge of a meltdown. To tell the truth, I was on the verge myself. The giant crowd was a bit much for this country mouse. So we did one last trip to the Home Arts displays so I could look at my ribbons again, then headed back north to catch the ferry.

Emma napped the whole drive to the ferry (2+ hours), we stopped for a quick sandwich before putting the car in line, then we spent a lovely half hour on the beach at the ferry terminal, throwing pebbles into the water and practicing getting both feet off the ground while jumping.

It was a very fun day. On reflection, though, I realize that the San Juan County Fair has a much friendlier, more fun atmosphere. It’s an order of magnitude smaller, for one thing, without the hordes of people. It has more of a “country fair” feeling. The fair in Puyallup seemed to be more rides/food/commercial vendor oriented. They had booths selling mattresses, for goodness sake! There were lots of gorgeous handcrafted items on display, but the quality and variety (if not the quantity) was just as good at our fair. In short, I’m glad I went and it was fun, but I don’t think I’ll make that 5-hour round trip every year.

What a week last week was! It’s always such a letdown when the fair is over. The Sheep-to-Shawl was a great success, though very low-key. We were the only team this year, so we just did it as a demonstration instead of a competition. I think the shawl came out beautiful, though the fact that it wasn’t a competition made everyone a little lackadaisical about it. There was much more chatting and taking breaks than in previous years and the yarn quality reflected that. As plyer, I got to see everything, and there were lots of overtwisted areas. However, with judicious removal of the corkscrewed areas as I plyed, the weft looked fine, and the overall effect was fairly consistent through the length of the shawl.



I really like the pattern of stripes that the weaver designed. It’s asymmetrical but looks balanced, even with the weft stripes only at one end. Kathy, the weaver, did a great job, despite problems with the borrowed loom losing warp tension at unexpected intervals. There was only one area where the pattern was messed up, and that was just two missed treadlings. She’ll be able to repair it fairly easily. We haven’t twisted the fringe yet, and it still needs to be wet finished, then it can go to the raffle winner.

And remember all the hardanger and crocheted pieces I put in the Sales Booth? Well, I sold all five of the hardanger sachets, two of the hardanger bookmarks, and got an order for a third bookmark (the woman who ordered it wanted one that had already sold, so I said I’d make another like it for her.) None of the crocheted sachets sold. Maybe I had the price set too high for those, since crochet is more commonly seen than hardanger.

I also was asked if I would sell the snowflake mobile! I think I will, after I fix it up a little. After all, I can always crochet more snowflakes. I have no idea what price to set, though. Any ideas?



One last picture and then I promise I’ll stop talking about ribbons and prizes. This is the haul this year:



The two strings of origami cranes in the front are the special prizes for Best of Class and Best of Show. They were made by Textile Guild members, and all the “Best of” winners got them. We started a tradition two years ago of giving these special prizes, and I think it’s really nice. The first year we did super-fancy tassels, and last year it was bookmarks. It’s more personal than just the ribbons.

You can also see the red, white, and blue ribbon I got on Saturday. The sewing thread doily won the People’s Choice Award!

And here are a few more miscellaneous photos to round out your fair experience (and to prove that I didn’t stand around admiring my ribbons all the time!). First off, we have Emma learning to weave:



She really got into this! I started the stick shuttle through the shed then she pulled it through the rest of the way. I evened the yarn with the selvedge, and she pulled the beater down. Repeat, repeat, repeat. She wove a good three inches before she wanted to get down.

One of Emma’s favorite parts of the fair was the livestock. The horses were a big hit, but it was the sheep that she really liked. This one was the best:



These lambs (there are two there, the other one is behind the ewe) were born on Wednesday morning, at the fair. We saw them for the first time on Thursday morning, when they were less than 24 hours old. You can’t really see it in the picture, but they still had their umbilical cords attached! They were so sweet and fuzzy and cute. Emma stood at the pen and just looked and looked and pointed and said “beebee SEEP” (that’s “baby sheep,” in case you don’t speak Emma-talk) and giggled and pointed some more. She also liked the piglets:



Which were about a week old, and liked to sleep piled up in the corner of their pen. She wasn’t much interested in the adult pigs, but she kept going back to the piglets and saying “Ny-ny piggies, ny-ny piggies” (night-night piggies).

And here’s a picture of the Grand Champion sheep pair, two Dorset cross ewes. At least I think they were ewes. I’m ashamed to say that I can’t remember. Whatever they were, they were beautiful. Bright white wool, and incredibly soft. Sheep always look so clean and tidy when they’re freshly shorn. I think black-faced sheep are my favorite.



It was a very fun week.

Guess what!! I WON!!! The sewing thread doily got Best of Show in Fiber Arts!!



WooHoo!! I was fairly confident that it would get Best of Class for crochet (which it did), but there’s so much talent on these islands, I wasn’t at all sure how it would stack up against the beautiful knitting and weaving. In the back of my mind, I really really wanted it to win Best of Show, but when you’re standing there looking at all the amazing Best of Class winners spread out on the table, you have to be realistic. It could have gone to any of them. I was so nervous when the judge (Judith McKenzie-McCuin) was trying to decide which entry to give the big purple ribbon to. My heart was pounding, and I felt like there was a 20 lb. weight on my chest (I was trying really hard not to react outwardly, because the names on the entries were still covered at this point and she didn’t know it was mine). Finally she had it narrowed down to two entries, mine and a truly amazing Fair Isle sweater.

She talked about the sweater first, listing all the great and beautiful things about it, but I was thinking “OK, maybe she’s decided, and is talking about the sweater first because it’s the runner-up.” Then she talked about my doily, and said how nicely done it was, and how she’d never seen anything like it. Then she went back to the sweater and started talking about it again, and I felt totally deflated because I was sure she had picked it. Then she went back to the doily again and said things like “This reminds me of the antique lace I’ve seen in museums in Spain and the Netherlands,” and “This shows an incredible amount of talent, dedication, and attention to detail,” and “I don’t normally care much for decorative crochet pieces, but this really speaks to me,” and “This reaches a higher level of achievement,” and lots of other things that made my face turn red and my head spin. And she put the purple ribbon on the doily!

I had to sit down.

I won Best of Show in 2002, for a knitted lace shawl, but I wasn’t present during the judging that time. This time I was there all day, and the suspense at the end was incredible. I’d seen all the entries and I knew I had a shot, but........still.

When she placed the ribbon, and I was shaking and (not quite) teary from the tension release, and everyone was congratulating me, she looked at me and “YOU made that? But you have a two-year-old!”



Everything else I entered did well, too. I had 25 items in the Fiber Arts and Textile Arts Departments, and all but one got blue ribbons. In addition to the Best of Class/Best of Show for the doily, I got runner-up for Best of Class in crochet for a mobile of crochet snowflakes and Best of Class for the square hardanger doily! The only red ribbon I got was for Emma’s little ladybug dress, and nobody knows why it wasn’t blue. The judge (a different one, not Judith) only wrote glowing comments, and the Department Superintendent says she thinks it should have been given blue. Whatever, at least Emma likes it.

What snowflake mobile, you say? Well, I’ve wanted to make this for a while, but have been putting it off because I don’t like the blocking part of making snowflakes. Sticky and gluey and messy. But I wanted to enter snowflakes in the fair, and a mobile seemed the best way to display a bunch of them. So on the night before the fair, I was busy doing this:



I blocked as many as I had pins for, because I figured if I was going to get gluey, I might as well do it up right. They dried overnight, and in the morning I had this:



Emma and I had collected a few driftwood twigs on a beach walk last week, so quick like a bunny, I put together this:



Half an hour later I was at the fair turning everything in. Nothing like waiting to the last minute! It’s really hard to take a picture of a mobile, but I like the way it turned out. The only problem was when I was constructing it I wished I had some clear monofilament that I could have used to hang everything. The thread just showed up too much, and Judith mentioned it during the judging. Oh, well. It still got runner-up Best of Class. I may not keep it as a mobile, anyway. It might get disassembled for Christmas giftoids.

I would recommend against using Elmer’s Washable School Glue to stiffen textile projects. I’ve never used it before, but that was all the store had on the day before the fair. It doesn’t dry hard. The snowflakes hold their shape, but are still flexible and not quite as crisp as I’d like. They also feel ever so slightly sticky. So whether I keep the flakes in the mobile or break it up, I’ll be taking them off their threads, washing out the glue, and re-blocking them with proper glue. Emma can have the washable stuff, at some later date when she can be trusted not to glue the dog to the couch. Some people say they’ve had problems with Elmer’s yellowing over time, but I haven’t had a problem with it. Snowflakes I made 10 years ago still look like new. Of course, I only have them out over the holidays, so they’re not in the sun all year long.

So it was a fun time at the judging, and it was very interesting to hear all Judith’s comments and suggestions. I feel like I learned a lot. I made an album here for everything I entered and their ribbons, if you’re interested in seeing them. I don’t want to clog up the internet with more pictures of things I have mostly already shown here.

I do want to mention, though, that I entered handspun yarn for the first time this year. (It’s also my first time entering weaving.) I finally felt that my yarn was really consistent and good enough for judging, and I was a little nervous. I entered the skeins of 3-ply teal Colonial (worsted spun wool), 2-ply 50:50 Merino/silk (worsted spun blends), and 4-ply Rambouillet x Cormo (woolen spun wool), and ALL of them got perfect scores- 100 out of 100! I guess all that spinning last winter paid off!

One last thing and then this swelled-head entry is over. Emma got her first blue ribbon! We participated in the public library’s Summer Reading Program, and they had a booth at the fair with the final awards. The goal they set was to read enough minutes to get five stickers, at 45 minutes per sticker. If a kid did that, they got a blue ribbon. (Being read to also counted, so preschoolers could participate.) Emma loves being read to, and we not only filled the goal page of five stickers, we filled SEVEN pages! That’s 26 ¼ hours of reading since the last week of June. (And I’m sure there were books that didn’t get written down.)



The librarian who gave her the ribbon told me that Emma was their youngest participant, and also had the most minutes of anyone! That’s my girl!

I finished the hardanger bookmarks this afternoon, while Emma was taking her nap. I'm quite pleased with the designs, and hopefully they will sell at the Fair. Tonight I'll cut out the bookmarks, wash and press them. Tomorrow I'll finish all the sachets.



This week is Fair Week! One of the highlights of my year!

• Tuesday- Entry day, both for the judged competition and the sales booth.
• Wednesday- Judging day, the first day the fair is open to the public. I'm working in the Fiber Arts area all day, helping the judge by writing down her comments for each entry and keeping track of the scores. Also helping with hanging displays as the judging progresses and telling visitors to keep their grubby paws of the entries. This will be a very long day.
• Thursday- I'll take Emma around to see the rest of the Fair (she's still young enough to get in free!), then I'm working in the Sales Booth in the evening.
• Friday- free day, nothing concrete planned.
• Saturday- Sheep-to-Shawl!!! 10:00 to 4:00, another long day. I'll be doing the plying, and somehow I got volunteered to be the team coordinator, to keep track of how long people spin so everyone gets a chance, make sure everone takes a lunch break, and to make sure we're on track with yarn production and weaving progress.

The judge this year is Judith McKenzie-McCuin, which is really cool. I think it's great that a small community like this can attract the "big names" as well as the bigger festivals can. Judith was here two years ago to give a spinning workshop, and she's a wonderful teacher. We're having a Spin-In on Thursday afternoon, and I'll probably go to that as well.

Fair time is so exciting!