Did I get a blue ribbon?

Either my piece or the one on top of my piece got a blue ribbon. :)  I hope it's me! ;) I will get back to the fair on Saturday.

I need to stop blogging and stitch!  Bye!

Update: Yes, it was mine that got a blue ribbon!!  By the Bay's Spring Cove.  I also got a third place for Prairie Schooler's Bremen Town Musicians and JBWs Heart Alphabet. :)

Entries made to fair today

I entered 3 items in the state fair today.  I keep forgetting to preregister!  LOL It didn't take long to get the tags.  I entered JBWs Alphabet Hearts, Prairie Schooler's Bremen Town Musicians, and herons in a tree by By the Bay.  Wish me luck!!!

On the way I stopped at the LNS.  I needed Petite Treasure Braid in 8 colors.  They had 7 colors.  They also only had one of the three Mill Hill beads I needed.  Not bad!  These are needed for the Passione Ricamo mystery design.  It's a mermaid.  My fabric is winging its way to me from Australia as I type.  I still need to pick up the DMC floss. I'm hoping someone will have a Labor Day sale.

My crochet coral reef was a contender!

I'm so tickled! It won a first place ribbon and then they told me it was under consideration for a purple ribbon, too!!! I wish it had gotten it, but it was all made in single crochet and the piece that won used more complicated stitches.

I picked up my entries yesterday and I've disassembled the reef, tagged everything and put it all in big zipper bags. Just need to mail them off (after taking pictures, counting and scanning them!).

This morning I found another reef piece I'd started!! This one is in white and is for the bleached reef. I'm thinking about mailing the pieces tomorrow to the Smithsonian and I find another piece to finish. Gee whiz!! I'm going to have to stitch fast!! Maybe I'll send some of it off tomorrow and put this in the last batch. That'll give me all week to crochet on it.

Everything I entered in the fair (as well as the last fair) won a ribbon. Batting
.100 so far! The state fair (entries due tomorrow) is always hit or miss for me. No way of telling how things will do. I'm working on a mallard on perforated paper that will be a magnet. I need to finish putting the beads on at lunch today. Not a problem! :) I can make it into a magnet at home. It can go in the state fair and the community fair before being given away as a birthday gift.

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My crochet coral reef got a first place!

I'm particularly thrilled because I don't usually enter anything in crochet. I need to submit the pieces to the Smithsonian Community Reef so I won't be able to enter it anywhere else. I'll barely have time to dismantle it!

Crochet cornucopia finished

Hooray! Yesterday I finished stitching the eggplant and the cornucopia. Now I just have to enter it in the fair. :) I did the apple, pumpkin, squash, eggplant, corn and the cornucopia. Cross your fingers and wish me luch! The patterns are free on www.Lionbrand.com.

I also finished stitching a needleroll in February and forgot all about it. If I can finish it in two weeks I can enter it, too, in the fair.

Entering the fairs

I so totally love entering stitched items in the fairs. The feeling of participation in the community, the fun of competition, anticipation of awards won, and hopefully cashing a check for premiums! I enjoy seeing how a piece does in different locations with different judges. Since I judge photography and baked goods I feel I can trash talk judges!

So far my favorite comment was on a Pine Mountain pillow wrap and their pillow that goes with it. The judges commented that the stitching was nice on the wrap, but the pillow with its serged edges on the outside and thread-tails was "poorly done". End result? 4th place out of 4 so maybe it was a pity placing. LOL I guess this group of judges isn't familar with Pine Mountain. I still like my pillow and now it's at the state fair....go pillow!! At least the state fair is judged by people deeply into cross stitch and other needlework. I may not agree with their decision, but I respect that they had good reasons.

My favorite thing in the fair is a little bee scissor fob that I attached to kids scissors that look like a bee. It's entered in bee arts and crafts and I try to have something to enter at least every other year. It'll be at least a week before I can get up to the fair to see how I did. And I said I enjoyed the anticipation??? Aargghhh! LOL

SB Sail Away is at the framer's

The customized custom mats arrived from Jill Rensel last Thursday and I took the piece to Kensington Framer's to be framed on Saturday. They had a beautiful champaign colored frame with a tiny bit of scrolling that echoed the scrolling of the flowers and vines at the top and bottom of the mat. Best part is that they can frame it in only one week! I want to enter it in the state fair before everyone stitches and enters it.

This shop is my ace-in-the-hole! I've always found the perfect frame here and they do a terrific job with the needlework. I also like looking at the gallery art they have available for sale. One day.....

While at the framers I saw a beautiful frame that looked like peacock feathers caught beneath a gold grid. Breathtakingly beautiful! The framer said it was the most expensive frame in his shop (8" x 10" ~ $116.0). Isn't it always the most expensive thing that catches our eye? I am looking for a piece to stitch for that frame. (I'll eat beans and hot dogs to afford the frame! LOL LOL)

I contacted a LNS first to see if they could frame my piece in time for the fair held later this month. NOT! Why didn't it occur to me that everyone else would be doing the same thing, too?? And they were all thinking of this LAST month. :)

I'm still stitching on the 3rd of the 4 Round Robins I received a few months ago. I'm on the home stretch and made the last design decision last night. Grass always takes longer to stitch than I think it will. At least I've already pulled a couple of possibilities for the 4th RR. :)

A surprise finish

I saw a tote bag I hadn't looked in for a while and found an almost finished piece by Cherished Stitches. It was supposed to be the tape measure cover but the tape measure it's supposed to fit doesn't exist any longer. Apparently it was taken off the market at about the same time the design was released. Although I suppose "things happen" I'm not pleased that I spent my time stitching something pretty for a clever idea that can't be completed. I started sewing it together with the idea of making it into a scissor fob, but stopped over a year ago with the stuffing to add and one inch left to sew closed. When I found it again today I decided it would be better to use it as a pin cushion. I liked the idea of stabbing this failure with pins! :)

Ten minutes later I have this cute pin cushion:


Best of all I think I like it again.

However, I won't be purchasing any more designs by Cherished Stitches. Although I like the designs a lot, this one didn't work as designed and a friend bought another chart, it was missing a page, and after being assured the page was in the mail she STILL hasn't received the missing page. I don't need the headache, especially when there's so much else to stitch.

I picked up my entries from the nearby county fair today and a little check for premiums! My Mill Hill Midnight Silo entered in the Home Arts Department theme competition "silo" won 4th place. My Shepherd's Bush (SB) Bunny's Fill, SB "L" is for Lamb, and Heart in Hand (HIH) whimsey's all done on one piece of fabric all took 2nd place. WAHOOOOO!!!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to the fair while it was on and didn't see the competition. I like to see the other entries because I always get an idea for something to stitch or how to frame or finish.

I have some things entered in my county's fair, too! I finished a needlepoint bracelet by Dimensions in May while at the beach this spring. I entered it, two pieces by Bent Creek (Here Comes the Sun and Bad Moon Rising) as a pair, a punchneedle farm design, and SB My Heart's Garden. I'll be volunteering as a cross stitch demonstrator on Thursday and Friday so I'll find out then how I did. I was judging another department on Saturday and wandered by after judging was long over, but the designs weren't displayed so I couldn't see my items much less see how they did. Patience is a virtue......