imjustlori

While talking with my Mom about the entries I had this year, she laughed and asked me if I just frantically knit for a month before the fair, JUST for the fair. Well, almost.

About a month or more out I'll go through what I have finished in the last year that I could enter. Oh hey, the Mickey Hat was finished sometime last year. And I just knit that blue hat. There's the handspun, hand-knit socks I finally finished, those can go in too. The rayon tank that I finally knit the neck and arm bands for, that can go in. And that wool yarn I keep petting, and couldn't sell, that's going in. Oh! And if the Muppet Alpaca yarn doesn't sell before the fair, I'll take it too.

Then I look at the current projects, and decide what there can be finished in time. Hm. There's the yellow mitts for a friend that I'm designing...her deadline is after the fair, so let's get those done. And the afghan! I'm so close to done, if I just push a little more...maybe I can get it done too. So that's what I work on for the time until the county fair.

I love to also enter a dishcloth...let's see if there's any patterns I like that I can whip out kinda quickly. (Two more days of knitting and that's ready.) Then there's the baking. I haven't done bread in a while...so I made some the day before you turn in your entries. It was a little denser than I like, but I took it anyway. I would have made chocolate chip cookies as well, but we were out of brown sugar, and last time the What Cookies won their category, and were so distinct, I didn't feel like they had any competition, so I didn't make any of those either.

So with everything gathered together, I took it all to the fairgrounds. Dropped all the things off at their respective places. Checked in for both volunteering gigs I do. And then waited overnight.

The first volunteer job I do for the fair is to set up the display for the knitting/crocheting/everything else that's lumped in there. I started doing this one after seeing heavy sweaters distorted on bad hangers and other display atrocities one year. It also gives me a chance to see how well I did in all the categories, which is a nice bonus.

Then I went back with the family on Thursday night to play at the fair. We ate fair food, watched pig and duck races, I talked with the sheep, we fed parakeets and a camel and a llama and lots of other animals, managed not to win a goldfish, and overall had a pleasant evening.

On Saturday I took my spinning wheel and set up shop in the display barn as a demo. I was joined by a couple of knitters and a weaving friend, and we made fiber arts interesting. Once that wrapped up, my weaving friend and I wandered the fair a little on our own, fed the parakeets again, looked at vendors, and overall had a good evening. It had poured earlier, so the fair wasn't crowded. Bad for the fair, good for us and wandering.

Then today I went back a last time and picked up my entries as well as my winnings. Everything I entered had placed, and I walked away with a check for $36.00.

So how did I do?

White Bread: Third place
Afghan: Third place
Dishcloth: Third place
Mitts: First
Blue Hat: Second
Mickey Hat: First
Rayon tank: First
Alpaca Muppet Yarn: First
Wool Yarn: First
Hand spun, hand knit socks: First, and Reserve Champion

The light is fading; tomorrow I'll take the beauty shots for everything and post them as well.

Nowhere near as organized as one might hope, but here's what I've got going NOW. Because I need to see it all, and prioritize. All things that have been finished will not be discussed.

The Boy's quilt needs sandwiching and quilting.
The latest "blocks of the month" in the quilting shop's class need to be finished (one week! there's a deadline!)
The punis needs to be spun and the singles plied (5 to go!)
The hand dyed needs to be spun and plied (the other half is finished, and I see long draw in my future!)
I have a sampling of a new yarn for a company to complete (also in a week! another deadline!)
And there's a cowl I started as an "easy project" when I need the fingers moving so the mind stays focused at work.

As I finish the above, I'd like to...
Make some spring/summer stitchmarkers. The Etsy shop needs an infusion.
Knit on my lime green top. It's of a weight to be worn NOW, but I'd like to get some more inches on it before I tuck it away again for cooler weather knitting.
I'm four knit squares from having all the pieces I need for my OLDEST knitting project, a rather large blanket. I'd love to get that completed this year too.
There's a quilt I'd like to finish for ME.
There's a partially complete quilt sampler from last year I'd like to call DONE.
There's a bajillion other things I want to do.

So it looks like today is for a sampling and some blocks of the month. If I get the sampling started (I'm making colorwork mitts) and the blocks done except for the applique, I'll pin that other quilt so I can get some quilting done. I'm just going to stitch along the seams on that one, so once I start, it shouldn't take long to finish.

So there's a Women's Network at Work. A good one, which if you're in a real facility holds things you can go to. I went to one or two of them held Somewhere Else way back when we had a facility here too. Now all I get are the emails about various things like some of those events in places I am not near, the kudos to Our Own for being awesome leaders, and articles about feminism, how to be a high-up corporate woman, and how you can't have everything--you have to pick and choose. It was the transcript of an interview in the vein of that last bit that came through today. I looked through it casually, knowing that my role at work is one I'm happy in, and having no desire to "rise up the ladder", and in doing so, leave what is my profession. I like my job.

***

Tonight I was re-watching Criminal Minds, and caught the quote at the end, recognizing the author hazily, and that he was a cartoonist. So I searched for the quote from the episode, then looked up the author, Bill Watterson. Ended up on a site with more of his quotes. Wandered the Internets and found a tribute comic in his style based on the same quote. Which, I also discovered, came from a commencement ceremony speech he gave at his alma mater back in 1990, the year I started college. I read the whole thing, and realized that this, THIS, is what I subscribe to.

Do what you love. Even when people around you don't understand, or think it's odd. He was doing this back in 1990, when I was entering what he called "formative years". I read his comic in the actual newspaper. I remember his railing against the syndicate, and the sad lack of Calvin and Hobbes merchandise. I, and a good part of the world I live in, seem to have absorbed the message he gave to his college.

As I read the speech, I thought of my friends who have worked to find their writing careers. I have friends who work unconventional jobs so they have the flexibility to do what they love. And I, I work as non-corporate in a corporation gig as you can get. From home, with flexible hours, and with people one time zone as well as halfway across the world. So I can be at the bus stop, and catch a Boy as he runs and jumps into my arms. So I can take part of my lunch hour and spin yarn, or dash out to the Scout Shop for the achievement pins for this month's pack meeting. I work with words, my cerebral love, and at times get to flex the semi-poetic muscles in my brain to match the words with what we really want to say. And at night, I play with yarn, or beads and wire, or fabric, and work with my hands.

Do I have it all? No. There's a messy house and filthy tub that will testify against that idea. But I have enough of the things that matter to me. I am content. I have no need to climb a ladder. I have made my choices, and I am happy in them.

Are you happy in yours?

I went to knit camp. Did more spinning than knitting. More below.

Quilting (nothing happened in this section. just skip it. Again.)

• Mystery Quilt: (ignored) pieced the center of the top. Starting to think about the fiddly piecing that has to happen, though, and might wrap this one up soon. Still thinking about this, and want to get it moving again before the end of the month.


• The Boy's Quilt: (ignored)  I need to clean my floor, move furniture, and get this sandwiched.


• My Quilt: (ignored) With the no need to think of my son's quilt's piecing, I think this one will sit a little longer.


• The jelly roll quilt: (ignored until the Mystery Quilt is done) I've showed the fabric to everyone who would hold still long enough to look. I'm pondering background colors now.

Knitting

• Birthday tank top: (ignored) I still hate picking up stitches. And there's still a lot of them on this neckline. And so far, I'm not doing it, either. *sigh*


• LIME GREEN TANK: (ignored) did not meet the deadline of SSK in July. Didn't take it with me, either.


• Orange top: Got some love when I got back, because I wanted something with a little more "oomph" than plain stockinette. Almost through the first half of the fun "make holes in perfectly good knitting" portion of this knit.


• New socks! I know. I needed plain stockinette for knit camp (for the plane, then hanging out with people, and so on), so I started a sock, top down. Planned an afterthought heel. Before I got home, I had the first sock past the afterthought heel scrap yarn and am now about halfway down the foot of sock 1. Woo hoo!


• The Hat With No Rav: Done. I messed up the top a bit, but it's a fun funky thing. Still want to poke the creator to put the pattern up there in Ravelry.


• Dishcloths: Finished mine, weighed it, wound out yarn for eight in a holiday yarn where the yarn balls are the same weight, and have already knit half of one of those. I'll start a pile, and weave in ends all at the same time.  1.5/9


• Colorwork Hat: Surprise! And Done. This was a class project from knit camp. I learned how to make a latvian braid, and the colorwork is almost good tension-like. With a little blocking, this will be a Christmas gift for someone.

Cross Stitch (move along, move along...)

• Yellowstone Lodge: (ignored)

Spinning

• Selfish sock yarn: I was away. I did take the wheel with me, but not this fiber. I had classes to take.


• 3#Fiber: (ignored) I'm going to start the test-spinning to reach a DK or Worsted eventually...


• New Market Spinning: I chose a blue-green gradient, from Stitches n' Rows. It excites me to spin--it's going to be awesome when done.


• Class spinning: loads of crap, because I was learning cool new things, like spinning thick, and then thick and thin, then in the other class I learned how to do supported long-draw. And practice is always messy. I'm all kinds of stoked to do more if this, because it's faster than short forward draw (what I do now), and will still give me an awesome yarn.


• Mini-skein from a purple puni: I made a puni! And then we were twelve and giggled over it. THEN it started going limp and falling apart, which reinforced our twelve-ness. So I went ahead and spun it up, then Andean plied, and I love the result. But it's a wee skein, so I'll have to figure out something small and lovely to do with it.