All's Fair

Check-in. Easy-peasy, and free!

The last time I entered anything in the county fair I was, if I recall, 13 years old. I was a 4-H member until I got into high school, and mid-summer fair was the highlight of the 4-H year.

My memories of those days are still vivid after more years than I want to admit but the emotions are decidedly mixed. The adrenaline rush of the last few days leading up to the fair as we finished hemming sewing projects and weaving in loose ends of sweaters. The excitement of seeing our market hogs in their pens. The panic when cookies did not come out the way they should and WE ARE OUT OF FLOUR. The heartbreak when the market hogs we had tamed and groomed and bonded with were loaded out to the packing house after the fair.

Maybe that's why in all those many, many years I didn't even consider entering anything in the fair again.

A couple of weeks ago, though, the owner of our wonderful Local Yarn Store suggested that her Facebook followers enter some of their work at the fair. She knew Small Town is full of knitters but the number of open class entries doesn't reflect our presence.

"Did you know that any one in the world can enter?" she posted. "It is also nice to show the public that knitting, crocheting and weaving is NOT a dying art that is only popular with the older generation! Let’s inspire new stitchers..."

Well. 

I have often described myself as a willing semi-competent in most areas of life. I'm not the best piano player, but if someone asks me to play I never say no. I'm not a very good cook, but if I'm asked to take cookies to the hospital auxiliary sale, I do.

I'm not a terribly good knitter, but...well, okay. I could enter something at the fair.

I gathered up a couple of projects I'd finished during the past year, plus a couple that were slightly older (anything made within the past five years is eligible) and headed down to the fairgrounds. It was a prep time of, maximum, 10 minutes. Check-in itself (which I remembered as being an all-day, anxiety-fraught ordeal) took an additional 10 minutes, and it only took that long because I hadn't pre-registered. Within minutes I had two shawls, a sweater, and a baby blanket entered.

There were all kinds of handcrafts in the open (non-4-H) class, with entrants from pre-teens to octogenarians. There were sewing projects, embroidery, crochet, cross-stitch, woodworking, and a wall of gorgeous quilts.

And you know what? Once again my willing semi-competentence was rewarded. There were only a few dozen knitted items and...

Hey! That's my shawl with the blue ribbon on it!

And this is my other shawl with another blue ribbon on it!

And this is my hand holding the prize money I was handed for being awarded two blues, a red, and a white!

You could have knocked me over with a feather. In fact, speaking of feathers, my face looked much like this:

He (she?) also received a blue ribbon, which just goes to show that I have no clue how to judge a chicken.

But the judge who left comments on my entries (and noted, correctly, that I should take a little more time with the hated weaving-in process) was so encouraging that I'll be grabbing some new items  and entering again next year.

Once again willing semi-competence proves to be a rewarding lifestyle.

Hmmm....maybe I could embroider that on a sofa pillow and enter it next year?