Fair Weather

Sue and I made our way down to Salem to for the Oregon State Fair yesterday. The day started out cool, but warmed nicely until we were in bright sunshine by the time we headed for home. We headed first to the quilts...

I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job taking pictures of the identifying notes for the quilters in this group I'm about to show you. In some cases, they were hung high overhead, and so I couldn't read them anyway. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to apologize to the quiltmakers for my failure to recognize their efforts beyond posting them here as some of my favorites from the fair.

This first one was kind of a different take on an I Spy quilt. The little I Spy pieces were made in the form of blocks resembling instant Poloroid photographs. It's a clever idea.

This one was made in response to a challenge at my former guild. The theme of the challenge was "Home is Where the Heart Is."

This next one was interesting to me because of the leaf blocks. I won a set of these blocks in the Block Lotto several years ago. Mine went to my friend Marei because I was near certain I would never do anything with them. I liked what this quilter did.

Here's the story behind them.

There were several Violet Craft patterns on display.

And the cats were well-represented.

This block wouldn't be hard to reproduce.

Pretty.

Sue and I both loved this one. We probably spent more time in front of this one than any of the others. I didn't notice which ribbons it received, but obviously a first place and a division win. That might be a best of show ribbon as well.

Here are some of the details.

This one's for you, Padsworth.

This is a whole cloth quilt, about king-sized. I was impressed that it was quilted on a domestic sewing machine.

In some cases, I just loved the quilting. These are free motion quilted sunflowers.

Dia de los muertos.

Here's an interesting take on a binding. I looked at it for a few minutes. It appears to be made in two pieces. Now I wish I'd looked at the back.

Oh, and whose quilt is this? We'd looked at all the quilts and were down to the last alcove. I still hadn't seen my own, and I was getting a little panicky. They were back in the farthest corners, and I didn't see them at first.

Here are the Quilting Snowladies.

I enjoyed watching these women looking at each individual block. I don't know if they were reading the caption or looking for the cats.

From there, we looked at the canning. There's something about seeing the canning at the fair that uninspires me. Seeing all those half-eaten jars with little stickers for ribbons...I don't know...each year I think I'll enter something next year. Then I see those sad little jars, and I change my mind.

We did enjoy the floppy-eared bunnies.

And the rastafarian goats.

Look at these two...it's good to have a friend.

When we got back to my house, I showed Sue our bench. She hadn't seen it in the flesh before. Of course, a selfie was a requirement.

Definitely good to have a friend.

So, after Sue left, it was tempting to can something. But then I thought about boiling and cutting and slicing and dicing, and I grew tired without even starting. Instead, I laid down for a long nap. I have no regrets. Today, I'll be back at it. Hoping to get at least three batches done because tomorrow (cue Jaws music) tomatoes arrive.