Fair Play

It was a day of many miles yesterday. I needed to pick up my quilts at the Oregon State Fairgrounds, but pick-up didn't start until 1:00 p.m. That gave me some time to fit in a little quilting before I left. 

The Vintage Tin quilt is about 2/3 quilted now, but it's highly doubtful that any more will get done until we're back from our trip to Moab on the 20th. For yesterday's session, I was able to finish three of the six smaller embroidered blocks. For the speed limit sign, I did a large pebble motif within the bounds of the sign, and then a sort of loopy scrolling thingy around the outside embroidered borders.

For the motorcycles, it was hard to know what to do, and so I just outlined them and the word "Motorcycles" and added some spoked circles in the middle. There's one on each side, but the bright lighting makes it hard to see the one on the right.

After that, I moved on to the license plates. I stippled inside the borders of the license plates, around the letters and numbers, and then outlined the embroidered boundaries of each.

At that point, I had just a little time left. I told myself that I should stop because I was sure to mess up if I went ahead. Then I'd have to take it out, because goodness knows, one cannot walk away when there's frog sewing to be done. (Ripit, Ripit.) I should have listened to myself because I had about half of this block stitched when I realized that my old tension headaches had resumed. Indeed, I had to sit and take out about 2/3 of what I'd done. Oy. All that's left of my quilting on this block is what you see in the image below.

And that's probably where it will sit until we get back from our trip.

Next up I needed to drive down to Salem and pick up my quilts. I was pretty happy with what the judges said about them, and I think I've learned some things. Here are the quilts I entered along with the judges' notes about them. First, A Gardener's Journal:

So the comment about keeping my "inner border lines straight" was consistent on all my quilts. Of course, it depends on who's doing the looking, and these same judges made notations about all the borders. No one has ever said that in previous entries, but apparently it's something I need to work on...although, I'm not sure what to do about it. Any ideas you all have would be greatly appreciated.

Next was the Psycatdelic quilt:

I love the comment about the rambunctious cat not being able to be contained by the sashing. This is a person who apparently doesn't know that cats will not be contained...quilts, or otherwise. And there's that comment about the "small purple border should appear straight".

Next was the Hello Moon quilt, which didn't win any ribbons. Nevertheless, their comments were very kind.

Interestingly, they didn't say a single word about the tension problems on the back. I was using a Bottom Line thread, and it gave me nothing but trouble. About 3/4 of the way through the quilting, I switched to a plain cotton thread, and my tension issues disappeared. And that's the second time I've entered a quilt in a show and had the comment that my "binding hand stitches should be closer together". Huh. I guess I'll need to pay more attention to that. How far apart are your stitches? Mine are probably a little less than half an inch. What is the ideal distance?

Finally, the Blooming Sunflower:

And there's that "inner border should appear straight" critique again. Okay. Got it. Now, what to do about it?

Okay, now speaking of fair play...Remember how I was ticketed for making an illegal left turn on the day of the fair? And remember this picture of the intersection? If you missed that whole story, you can read about it right here in the form of my letter to the court attempting to get my fine reduced. But if you're in a hurry, you can just look at the picture I took of the intersection that day.

Yesterday, I drove through the very same intersection and took a picture. Notice anything different?

So, apparently the suspicion many of you articulated, in agreement with my own thinking on this, is that the City of Salem set up the intersection to generate revenue from unsuspecting visitors to the fair. I have just one word to say about this: A$$holes. 

I'm going to keep quiet about it until I get a response to my letter from the court, but then I have every intention of contacting the Salem Statesman-Journal to see if they'd like to report on this. There have been stories in our local newspapers about red-light intersections with cameras that catch those who run red lights (indeed, a dangerous offense). Nevertheless, it's been shown that the timing of the yellow light at some of those intersections is shorter than intersections with no cameras. 

Okay, so appropriately incensed, I came home, dropped off my quilts, and then took off in the opposite direction to pick-up our CSA share. Pretty much all of this week's share is going to our petsitting neighbors, but I did pull out some of the red tomatoes to make one more batch of diced tomatoes.

Today is going to be packing, packing, packing. I still have a few food items to cook up, but most of the food is done. Then I'll be packing up my clothes, toiletries, electronic devices, camera equipment, magazines, needlework, and pretty much everything that isn't a cat. We're not doing any particular sight-seeing on this trip, but driving straight to Moab. This trip is definitely about the destination rather than the journey.

As much as we hate traveling the interstates, it is the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B and back again. The objective of this trip is to ride our ATV's in Canyonlands and around the general vicinity, and so that's where our focus will be.

My laptop is coming along, and so I will be blogging and posting pictures along the way. You can come along too, if you like! Next time you hear from me, we'll be on the road.