Don’t worry. I’m all better now. But when the fair came along this fall, and when I started to go through the list of categories (oh, remember the days when I had that list memorized?), I could only come up with four things to enter. Four. I did, however, write down probably another half dozen that I felt convinced I could come up with if I just got real busy and focused. Then I realized that was crazy, and I helped Anya find some things to enter, and I figured if I added both her stuff and my stuff together that would sort of count as stuff I entered because I made her, right?

Anya, however, didn’t seem to agree with that and made sure everyone knew that SHE won $15 at the fair and her mother only won $10. Fine, kid. I see how that works. I’m storing this away for later use.

So, what did I enter? There’s an owly crewel piece:

And the aviator hat I crocheted:

And Anya’s sweater and one of the baby hats I knitted:

Enough of that stuff. Tiny as it was, there was more to the fair than the crafts. There were games,

and chances for Daddy to look silly,

and lots and lots and lots of corn.

Then it rained.

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

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.

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!).

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?

104 | Needlework | Crochet | Infant’s Set: Completed

I don’t remember where the pattern came from, but it was something I found online somewhere. I enjoyed this pattern and learned a lot about crochet. I also learned the truth of dye lots and how my house is really dark. See, I ran out of yarn about 1/4 through the bonnet. I went to the store, picked up another ball, and took it home. Sure, it matched perfectly! After I was finished, I took the bonnet to the store with me to find ribbon to go with it, and the second I pulled the piece out of my purse there in the glow of the store lights POOF I could immediately tell where I’d started the new yarn. Oh well. I just have to enter; I don’t have to win. Plus, the fold of the hat sort of covers it up.

116 | Needlework |Cross-Stitch | Beaded Item: Completed

Have I mentioned lately that I don’t like cross stitch? It’s not as horrible as I thought before I started the Fair quest, but doing this beaded piece made me renew my dislike. I started off using too many strands, but I refused to acknowledge that early on when I could have done something about it. Instead I kept on going and ended up cranky the whole time I worked on it. Then came the beads. The pattern called for cream beads, but I couldn’t find any so I used gold. That’s fine except they were clear beads painted gold. How do I know? Because the gold paint rubbed off some of them. Oh, and my needle was too big to get the beads over it, so I de-threaded the needle, put the bead on, and re-threaded the needle over and over again. Yes, I could have bought a different needle, but I live in the boonies and I am lazy.

118 | Needlework | Embroidery | Crewel: Completed

Crewel. I am working on a crewel project, I say. I have to pronounce it very distinctly: krewwwwww-ul. Crewel is to regular embroidery as whittling is to wood carving. At least to me. The difference between the two is teeny. With crewel (at least as far as I can tell) the difference is that you use wool thread instead of cotton or silk like other embroidery. I figured that the supplies would be something sort of hard to find, so I contacted a nearish needlework store (nope) and looked around online (some). Then one day I was in Michaels, and there was a kit, and then there was me with a 50% off coupon. Huzzah! I liked making this piece. Mostly. I was sort of annoyed by how the pattern had big areas painted on that I wasn’t supposed to stitch over. That seems like cheating. It looks sort of weird close up, too, but from afar it’s fine. Oh yeah, I learned how to do french knots. They are messy, but I can do them, the dreaded things.

122 | Needlework |Embroidery | Table Linens: Completed

What is a table linen, really? Surely a doily is a table linen in that it goes on the table and is linen-y. That is my story. I found a kit at the local sewing/craft store because, well, because I did. It was fun. Really fun. (Except for the part where I got one of the pieces slightly damp and the inked on pattern disappeared. Woops. Good thing there were three pieces in the kit.) This was (I think) my first experience with embroidery of any real sort, and it was like coloring with thread. I only did one type of stitch for the entire piece, but what’s my motto? “I only have to enter; I don’t have to win!”

123 | Needlework |Embroidery | Misc. Embroidery: Completed

A few months back, I bought an iron-on pattern with dancing tea pots and cups, but my craft cave swallowed it. Anya helped me pick out a new pack of patterns with kitties. I went a little cRaZy on this, my second embroidered piece. I used TWO different stitches. WoooHooo! Watch out! This piece was just as fun as the doily. After the fair is over, I want to go back and do all the other days of the week. Anya especially wants me to do Thursday. I’m not sure how durable the stitches are, though, so I’m not sure I would be able to bring myself to use the towels.

Welp, that’s all for now. I have a few things in progress, and the garden isn’t completely dead yet. Only a few more months to go. I’ve started wondering what I’m going to do when the fair is over.

This weekend I made seven capes. Most of them don’t look like this one. Well, none of them look like this one. One of them looks kind of like this one but with zebra stripes. The rest are velvety, and I can’t wear them because I don’t have the neck of a 3-4-5-year old, and Anya refused to model one for me, and so I have no picture. And now for a fair-crafting update.

137 | Needlework | Quilt | Wall Hanging: Completed

I feel like a real quilter now. The pattern I chose was called “Amish Unknown” and was from Quilts from America’s Heartland: Step-By-Step Directions for 35 Traditional Quilts, which I found at the library. I love the library. If you recall, I had a bit of a rocky start. Yeah, I am pretty sure the measurements in the book were wrong. Here’s a picture of the size called for in the book (left) and what it really should have been (right). (I forgot to mark the mistake in the book before I returned it. Arg.)

After I ranted and whined for a while about having to cut down those squares, the block went together pretty quickly. I stalled for a week or two, though, on the binding. My goal was to finish this weekend, but yesterday I realized I was almost out of thread. So, I took a nap. But when I woke up the thread fairy had not appeared, and I learned the fabric store in town closed in 32 minutes. I threw Anya and Andy in the car and flew! I thought all was lost when a fancy car from one of the funeral homes in town pulled out in front of us on the road-with-few-passing-zones. Luckily, they were done with the funeral and on their way home and I guess ready for a beer because they drove pretty fast. We pulled into the parking lot of the fabric store with three minutes to spare. One of the workers was walking out the door, and I began to panic. I grabbed my money, ignored Andy and Anya, and dashed to the store door, which was mercifully still open. I walked in, and the lights were dim, and all the other employees were standing in the entry way with their coats on and their purses on their arms. Uh oh.

But, when I held up my nearly-empty spool and declared a thread emergency, one of the women calmly escorted me to the thread display, picked out what I needed, gave it to me, and ushered me towards the checkout, where another woman rang up my purchase with a smile and turned off the cash register, and then they all gathered behind me and herded me out of the shop before I could be distracted by shiny objects. I was so excited and full of glee, I flung my thread-holding hand up into the air as I skipped to the car. The spool flew from my fingers and bounced off the parking lot surface and rollllllllllllled under the car down the hill towards the huge drop off to the street below. Time went in slow motion as I yelled, “My threeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!” Then I realized there was a wall there and the thread didn’t go so far and it would all be O.K.

Anyhow. After that I felt I must do the binding immediately. Otherwise all the drama was pointless. It took me three episodes of Monarch of the Glen and several furry helpers to do the hand stitching on the back, but now it is done! (I can’t believe they killed off Hector!!!)

Now, without further ado….

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.

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.

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