The fair is September 22. Seems like a ton of time and no time at all. I’ve started marking items off the list that I know I won’t get to…like the cursed crocheted afghan and all the machine embroidery. It’s been sort of freeing! Here are the items I have been able to finish lately.

23 | Food | Canned Fruit | Peaches: Completed
69 | Food | Preserves | Peaches: Completed
72 | Food | Pickles | Dill: Andy Completed

The pickles are Andy’s (and the jar in the picture is an open one, not one that would go to the fair, just so you know I know), but he’s going to enter them and I figure that’s good enough for me to mark that off my list. A week ago I did the peaches and the jam. So far my fruit canning is not going so well, and the jam didn’t set up as much as I would have liked. (I don’t have to win; I just have to enter. And in the case of canned items, not kill anyone.)

119 | Needlework | Embroidery | Ribbon Embroidery: Completed

I never even knew people did embroidery with ribbons. I did a little googling to figure out how to do it, and then I came across this book at the library. (I love the library.) I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in this craft. It has good pictures and nice examples. I made up the design I used, but I got inspiration from the ideas in the book. I like the texture and dimension of embroidering with ribbon, and I’d like to do more.

159 | Craft | Holiday Decorations | Hanukkah: Completed

I think I found this idea last fall. I bought the card stock in the winter. I kept putting it off thinking it would be a pain and tedious and blergity. Made myself start it today and got it finished fairly quickly and easily. My shapes are a bit wonky and smooshy, but I like it. I like how it floats around in the air.

171 | Craft | Ceramics/Clay | Hand-Built Item: Completed

The ceramics/clay group has been a bit intimidating for me being outside of my experience. I bought a big block of air-dry clay and made a coil pot/vase/thing. I am pretty sure I should have smooshed the coils together and flattened it all out to make it stable, but I really liked how the coils look. Anya calls it my beehive pot, so that’s why I painted it yellow.

183 | Craft | Art | Mosaic: Completed

I was inspired by this post, which I found a link to on pinterest. Here’s my helpful hint if you decide to make a mosaicy thing with paint chips: do not cut the chips into little bits in one big heap. Keep them separate by color as you cut. I think I spent two hours sorting the darned things. I do like this, but I would like to recommend the judges viewing it from a few feet back. If you look at it up close, there are little cat hairs and teeny bits of rubber cement I couldn’t get out. Eh, that’s just character, right?