I apologize for keeping all of my fans in limbo for so long, but I’ve had blogger’s block.

So, how did I do? I not sure of the exact number of things I entered; it’s all a bit hazy now and my counting skills are off, but I’m going to go with 72. It took about an hour to get everything registered, and I was lucky number 13 to sign in. All the extension folks and volunteers helping were really nice and seemed to think my quest was pretty cool. The last item I completed was finished there next to the registration table where I sat on the concrete for about 15 minutes writing in the text for my scrapbook layout about the fair.

I turned my items in Thursday evening, and the fair wasn’t until Saturday morning, so there was some waiting and a weird sense of being lost in the world. When we arrived at the fair, Anya wanted to play on the bouncy house, but I am a mean mama and forced her to go to the exhibit room instead. It was pretty awesome to see all those ribbons.

Here’s a quick look at the main craft area. There was another craft table off to the right that you can see the very corner of, but you can see this isn’t big a competition and can maybe understand why I was inspired to start this project.

Here’s a list of everything I entered and what it won. I think I got most of the placing right, but some might be switched. (The ribbons got shifted when I packed up.) I’m really not sure about the grands/reserves…there are two not listed on here ’cause I just can’t remember where they go.

2 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Misc. Fruit (1/2 pt) – 2nd
3 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Tomatoes, Cherry (6) – None
4 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Tomatoes, Red (4) – None
5 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Tomatoes, Yellow (4) – None
6 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Beans, String (8) – 3rd
15 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Peppers (3) – 2nd
16 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Potatoes (4) – None
20 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Misc. Veg (pumpkin) – 3rd
21 Food Canned Fruit Apples – 3rd
23 Food Canned Fruit Peaches – 1st
60 Food Jelly Blackberry – 2nd
64 Food Jelly Misc. Jelly (apple) – 2nd
65 Food Preserves Apple Butter – 2nd
66 Food Preserves Berry (not strawberry) (raspberry) – 3rd
67 Food Preserves Strawberry – 1st and grand or reserve
69 Food Preserves Peaches – None
78 Horticulture Plants Flowering House Plant – None
81 Horticulture Plants Foliage House Plant – 2nd
87 Horticulture Cut Flowers Marigold (single stem) – 3rd
88 Horticulture Cut Flowers Meadow Flowers – 3rd
89 Horticulture Cut Flowers Zinnia (single stem) – 3rd
91 Horticulture Cut Flowers Mum (single stem) – 3rd
97 Horticulture Cut Flowers Misc. Cut Flower (single stem) – 2nd
98 Horticulture Cut Flowers Arrangement of Cut Flowers – 1st, grand or reserve
100 Horticulture Dried Flowers Dried Flower Arrangement – 2nd

103 Needlework Crocheting Doilies – 2nd
104 Needlework Crocheting Infant’s Set – 1st and grand or reserve
105 Needlework Crocheting Table Linens – 2nd
106 Needlework Crocheting Misc. Crocheted Item (market bag) – 1st
108 Needlework Knitting Infant’s Set – 2nd
111 Needlework Knitting Misc. Knitted Item (shawl) – None
112 Needlework Cross-Stitch Baby Item – 1st
113 Needlework Cross-Stitch Christmas Item – 1st
114 Needlework Cross-Stitch Wall Hanging (unframed) – 2nd
116 Needlework Cross-Stitch Beaded Item – 1st and grand or reserve (I think)
117 Needlework Cross-Stitch Misc. Cross Stitch Item (bookmark) – 1st
118 Needlework Embroidery Crewel – 1st
119 Needlework Embroidery Needlepoint – 1st
120 Needlework Embroidery Silk Ribbon Embroidery – 1st
122 Needlework Embroidery Table Linens – 2nd
123 Needlework Embroidery Misc. Embroidery – 2nd
130 Needlework Clothing Blouse or Shirt – 2nd
132 Needlework Clothing Dress – 1st and grand or reserve
133 Needlework Clothing Totebag or Handbag – 2nd
134 Needlework Clothing Skirt – 2nd
135 Needlework Clothing Misc. Clothing Article (cape) – 2nd
136 Needlework Quilt Pieced – 2nd
137 Needlework Quilt Wall Hanging – 2nd
139 Needlework Quilt Misc. Quilt – 2nd
141 Craft Handicraft Plastic Canvas Item – 1st
142 Craft Handicraft Button Crafts – 1st
143 Craft Handicraft Creative Craft (toothpicks, rolled paper) (quilled) – 1st
144 Craft Handicraft Creative Toy – 1st and grand
145 Craft Handicraft Item made from recycled materials – 2nd
146 Craft Handicraft Jewelry – 1st
149 Craft Home Craft Ink Stamped Item – 2nd
152 Craft Home Craft Decorative Painting – 1st
157 Craft Holiday Decorations Christmas – 1st and grand
159 Craft Holiday Decorations Hanukkah – 1st
161 Craft Holiday Decorations Fall – 1st
162 Craft Holiday Decorations Misc. Holiday (quilled valentine) – first
164 Craft Woodworking Wood Burning – 2nd
171 Craft Ceramics/Clay Hand Built Item – 2nd
175 Craft Art Drawing, Ink / Pen – 1st
177 Craft Art Metal Art / Metal Jewelry – 1st
178 Craft Art Stamping – 1st
181 Craft Art Scrapbooking (2-page layout) – 1st and grand or reserve
183 Craft Art Mosaic – 1st and grand or reserve
184 Craft Art Misc. Art (glass beads) – 1st

How do I feel about the outcome? Well, I am very bummed my knitted shawl didn’t win anything, but I am very giddy that my strawberry jam won first place. I can’t believe my Hanukkah item beat a Hanukkah item made by some who actually celebrates that holiday, and I think some of the cherry tomatoes I submitted were fermenting. All in all, the whole thing is pretty awesome.

What have I been doing since September 22? I did work on my scrapbooks for the first time in a year. Other than that, I’ve only been interested in crocheting market bags (106). I’ve done five so far and have number six about half done. Why? Why do I want to make all these bags? I do not know. I didn’t manage to finish Anya’s sweater in time to enter it, and I do want to finish it, but when I pull it out all I can think about is making more bags. Perhaps I want to go shopping?

On a related note, I want to mention that Andy’s pickles won first place, and Anya (who entered 3 craft items) won two first place ribbons, a third place ribbon, and a grand champion ribbon. Our family totally dominated the 2012 Floyd Fair.

Thank you to all my friends and family who followed along and supported me during this quest. I shall leave you with a part from some poem I was forced to memorize in elementary school:

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That maybe it couldn’t, but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he tried.

–From “It couldn’t be done” by Edgar A. Guest

I’ve sewed everyday for the last two weeks…or pretty close to that. I’m definitely still no expert, but I think I’ve at least progressed from newbie to intro intermediate. I’ve double stitched and edge stitched and gathered and pleated and elastic-ed and hemmed and eased and ripped and ripped and ripped and then done it all over again. I am very thankful for all the instruction and advice my mom has given me and for the ripping out she helped with when my eyes started to cross.

Needlework | Clothing | Shirt: Completed

This blouse (I don’t really like the word “blouse,” but this seems to be more of one than a shirt) is from another pattern Anya picked out last fall. I liked how the pattern says “EASY” on the front in big letters. I’d like to say, though, that the shirt was not EASY. I said this to my mom who replied, “Well, it is easy. It doesn’t have any buttons or zippers, so it is kind of easy.” I feel more accurate advertising would call this pattern EASIER.

Needlework | Clothing | Dress: Almost Completed – Needs Buttons

We went to the fabric store. A few times. One time, we were supposed to just be going to get something specific like a half yard of fabric to finish the back of a quilt or a spool of thread or a button. Then we remembered the sale bin. And saw the patterns on sale. And Ooo! Look! Pretty! This one time, we found fish bowl fabric, and it was on clearance and how can you resist fabric with fish IN BOWLS? You can’t. Did I mention patterns were on sale? Had to find a pattern for the fish bowl fabric. The pattern I found happened to be one already in my mom’s stash. (Don’t worry; I found a few more to get for other projects.) This dress was nice and moved pretty quickly until I got to the buttons on top. My mom recommended I use my machine at home that does buttons automatically, unlike her machine. And then I couldn’t find the right sized buttons, too. So, it’s not quite done. While I was admiring it, those darn fish started to misbehave. On the skirt, the fish are upside down. Oops.

Needlework | Clothing | Misc: Completed

When Sewing Boot Camp started, I hadn’t planned on doing the Misc, but when I saw this pattern (ON SALE!), I was inspired. I found some nifty clearance fabric and whipped out this baby in a few hours. When the kid went to bed this evening, this leotard was in pieces, and now it’s all ready for her. It’s probably big, but I still think she’ll enjoy it. With the bow it will be really nifty with her hot pink Tooth Fairy twirly skirt.

Needlework | Quilting | Pieced Quilt: In Progress

All that’s left is the binding. Will I finish it tomorrow, the last day of my trip? Unsure. Unlikely.

The fair is September 22. Have I mentioned that yet? It’s getting close, and I’m getting a bit nervous. I’m still working hard and have finished two more pieces. I don’t have the numbers, but here ya go anyhow:

Needlework | Clothing | Skirt: Completed

I don’t know if I’ve ever completed a clothing sewing project. (Unless that Michael Jacksony glove I made out of swimsuit material in elementary school counts. Does it?) I’ve started several but didn’t finish them. When I went looking for patterns for the fair, I tried to find something simple. Want to know of a pattern this is not simple? McCall’s M5841. Looking back, I wonder why I thought it was simple. It has a bunch of pieces. It’s gathered. Why would I think that’s simple? I suppose it doesn’t have any zippers or buttons. I also suppose back then when I bought the pattern, I didn’t realize how gathering and bunches of pieces can be cRaZy.

I tried starting this a while ago. I got all the pieces of the tiers sewed together and the top part cut out and sewed. Then one night I started trying to put it all together, and I don’t remember what happened….it’s sort of fuzzy, but the next thing I remember I was stuffing the pattern, directions, and fabric into my sewing box in a very angry and crumply way. I remember Andy stared at me and blinked and was sort of in shock or afraid or something because I was cRaZy.

Everything stayed in the box until my current visit to my Mom’s house. Thank goodness for Mom, who gave me some great tips and support and distracted the kid. In no time…or a few days perhaps…it was done. HUZZAH! (Alas, my model was in need of a nap at the time of the big reveal and only very reluctantly wore the skirt for ten point two seconds while I snapped this very cranky photo of her.)

Woodcraft | Woodburning: Completed

After I put the squiggles inside the heart, I wished I hadn’t. Oh well. I do think I will do more wood burning because it is fun to burn stuff in a nice, controlled way. I used some of my birthday money to buy a little kit, and it’s pretty nice. I do wish there was a good way to change the points without having to wait for them to cool down. Or perhaps a way to better tell if the point is cool before actually grabbing it. (Ow.)

Up next? A small quilt, a shirt, and a dress (made using fishbowl fabric!).

Someone from school posted recently that she missed the warm days of February. Me too.

84 | Horticulture | Cut Flowers | Dahlia: sprouting
85 | Horticulture | Cut Flowers | Gladioli: sprouting
94 | Horticulture | Cut Flowers | Calla Lily: planted

133 | Needlework | Clothing | Tote bag or Handbag: Completed

I bought the pattern for this bag around Christmas of 2010. At the same time, I bought some fabric and thread and bias tape. I started work on the project fairly soon after my purchases, but when my fabric ended up being too short of the pattern, I tucked everything away in despair. Stupid fabric being too short. I’m not really sure what qualifies something as a tote bag, but I am going to say this grocery-type bag is something you can tote things in, so good enough. This bag really stumped me several times, starting with the pocket on the front (which you can’t really see in this photo). I learned about top stitching, and I did a lost of basting (without a turkey), and I sewed bias tape around a corner (tucking in the fullness). The bag took me a really long time to make, but I think now that I know how to make it I could make another one a lot quicker. Don’t know if I want to make another one, though.

139 | Needlework | Quilt | Misc: Completed

I wanted something simple for my first venture into quilting. When I saw the Ziggity Mug Rug, I knew this was the piece for me. I’m not quite sure what a mug rug is. I thought at first it was a fancy coaster, but it’s really big in a rectangular sort of way. The best I can figure, you put your mug on it and have room left over for a pile of cookies. For my mug rug, I poked through the bag of scraps from my yo-yo adventure last fall and found almost enough teeny pieces. I cut the last two pieces from some other fabric I found in my fabric stash. (I hesitate to call it a stash. It’s more like a handful of handkerchiefs crammed in between yarn bins.) The fabric colors and patterns don’t go together all nice and cute…part of that is because I accidentally sewed a few pieces together differently than I had meticulously planned. The binding is pretty messy, and I wonder if the washable marker I used to mark the points will indeed wash out. Still, the points match! THE POINTS MATCH! I am in awe.

ARG! So I picked a quilting pattern from a library book. The pattern is called “Amish Unknown.” Great name. Anyhow, it’s a quilt, but I am just gonna do one block and frame it up or whatever you call that and make it my needlework | quilted | wall hanging. So, I’m grooving right along and get all my pieces cut for the block and start sewing together stuff, and there’s these 5 checker board square piece thingies made of four smaller squares and I followed the instructions and double-triple-quadruple checked, but the last time I was in math class, if you put together four 3.5″ squares into a bigger square, the bigger square is NOT gonna be 3.5″, too. Unless there is some secret space warping quilting secret. GARG. I had Andy look at the directions, too, but it was like I was back in high school asking my Dad for math help and he had to read the WHOLE book to help me with one little question that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the book. Quit looking at the triangles! I am not talking about the triangles! This has nothing to do with the triangles, dammit!

So I put everything away and went to watch “Fairly Odd Parents.”

Tomorrow everything will magically make sense, or I will find a red pen and fix the bloody book.

1 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Apples: Tree is blooming!
2 Garden Produce Fresh Fruit Misc. Fruit: Raspberries are looking good
6 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Beans, String: Seeds purchased
7 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Beets: Seeds purchased
8 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Broccoli: Seeds purchased
9 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Cabbage: Seeds purchased
10 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Carrots: Seeds purchased and some planted
11 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Gourds: Seeds purchased
12 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Cucumbers: Seeds purchased
14 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Onions: Planted
16 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Potatoes: Planted
17 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Squash, Yellow Summer: Seeds purchased
18 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Squash, Zucchini: Seeds purchased
20 Garden Produce Fresh Veg Misc. Veg: Garlic going strong
80 Horticulture Plants Cactus: Been poking along for a few months
81 Horticulture Plants Foliage House Plant: Spider plant at school is a-okay
82 Horticulture Plants Misc. Potted House Plant: Succulents looking good
84 Horticulture Cut Flowers Dahlia: planted
85 Horticulture Cut Flowers Gladioli: planted
87 Horticulture Cut Flowers Marigold: Seeds purchased
89 Horticulture Cut Flowers Zinnia: Seeds purchased
93 Horticulture Cut Flowers Day Lily: Tons growing outside…will any be blooming in September? I don’t know.
94 Horticulture Cut Flowers Calla Lily: Bulbs purchased
95 Horticulture Cut Flowers Misc. Lily: Tons growing outside…will any be blooming in September? I don’t know.
96 Horticulture Cut Flowers Rose: Several plants outside…will any be blooming in September? I don’t know.

104 | Needlework | Crochet | Infant’s Set: Almost done…just have to finish the hat

139 | Needlework | Quilt | Misc: Mug Rug – In progress

143 | Craft | Handicraft | Misc: Quilled Raspberries – Completed

152 | Craft | Homecraft | Decorative Painting: Completed