State Fair Entry Day

We took all our "Home Arts" and "Creative Arts" items to enter in the State Fair today.  (Sounds better than saying all our stuff.)  I had a 2.5 hour lunch because it took so long to get them entered.  They write all the tags by hand and some of them write really slowly.  I looked around at the other entries while I was waiting -- okay, not looked around, peered over the barrier of tables to see what might be visible.  I think there are a couple of things I entered I should have just left home.  I dunno 'bout y'all, but my mind gets weird at 3:00 in the morning and thinks things look lots better than they do! 
I entered eleven home arts items, 10 tatted and one crocheted.  There are a few I entered in the State that I didn't enter in the County Fair (those 3:00 in the morning ones, and a couple of others).  I don't have any pictures to show -- that'll have to wait until the 8th when I go to the Fair and see the results.  This is just a little panic blurb...gaaakkkk-- what if they're all really bad?  This is the first year I've entered as Advanced Amature (the next step is professional and I don't make a living on this stuff!).  What's the standard?  Is it that much higher than Amature?  I don't know.  It just seemed silly to not use the Advanced when at least three of the things I entered were my own patterns, ya know?

Again with the Split Chains

Another bit of a doily from all that split chain practice I've been doing.  As you can see -- I've got a center I really like.  This one has some picots all connected together in the center, which makes it appear a bit ...well... off-center.  It's made with two strands of a blue ombre hand-quilting thread wound together on the shuttles.  This one has been done for a while.  I was going to enter it in the State Fair, but it is an inch over the size for a coaster (5 inches) so I had to choose between this one and the purple one.  I think the purple one looks more finished (even though I can't find the light purple to edge it).  The last time I entered something done with an ombre thread the judges said the color made it look fuzzy or out of focus or something. 

Anyway, my aunt admired this when I was working on it.  I told her she could have it when it was done -- after the fair.  Now that it's not going in the fair, I think I will send it off to her.

Hmmmmm...perhaps I should make some pattern notes first, eh?  This is another that did whatever the shuttles thought they could manage, and I didn't write any of it down.  If I send it away, I'll never be able to make another.

Fair's end

The only other things I entered this year were not tatted.  I entered these two crocheted doilies:

Now I have to decide which to enter in the state fair, because they turned out to both be in the same size category and I can only enter one in each category at the state.  Which do you think I should enter?

Fair Again

Two colors of purple Lizbeth size 20 thread and Marie Smith's method of doing split chains resulted in this doily:
The center is the same as a number of others I have sitting around the house -- I did a lot of testing on this split chain thing!  I'd get something I rather liked then start over and somewhere along the line think, "Oh, wait, I could change this bit -- that would be better for this round."  Yes, but once one round changed, all the others after it had to as well.  I didn't write down a pattern either.  *sigh* 


I had intended to make another round (of however wide I could get it without breaking the thread ) in the light purple.  I lost the ball of thread.  I looked everywhere I could think of -- though I will admit I didn't look in the fridge or the toilet tank.  (Maybe I'll check those tonight.)  Anyway, being frustrated by the thread I stopped and blocked it.  Must be okay, because it got a blue ribbon and a high blue (considered for sweepstakes) ribbon.  That made me laugh, because I don't like this doily nearly as well as some others I've made, but it is the one that blocked the best! 

Still Fair

These earrings are my first try at Beanile lace tatting.  I used one of Nina Libin's free patterns.  They're made with Oren Bayan silver metallic thread and forty-bazillion size 11 blue glass seed beads.  I had to change the top a bit to get them to work on my "mommy earwires" (which are not wire, but nylon). 

As you can see, I got a nice second place ribbon for them.  The comment card said "beading should lay flat, so work is too tight"  Yes, I wondered about that.  I seem to have to add a stitch or two here and there to various patterns to get them to lay flat.  That or block the bejabbers out of 'em.  These I didn't block at all, so I think I'll be taking them off the card, blocking, then putting them back on the card for the state fair.  Unless I find a spare few hours to make new and better ones (as if).

They're pretty, though, aren't they?  Just say "Yes!"  :)

More Fair

All these things I entered in the County Fair have been blog-posted during the past year, so I'm sticking them all together here.
The Utahraptor and Fantasy Tree are those I made for the Shuttlebirds convention.  Both got first place blue ribbons, but the Utahraptor also got a "high blue" (considered for sweepstakes) ribbon and a Judge's Choice ribbon.  I'm so vain -- I love getting the big ribbons!

 

The butterfly I made from Anne Bruvold's Christmas hearts got a blue ribbon, too.  These are such perfect little hearts (not bragging on my tatting -- bragging on Anne's pattern!) .  Depending on the categories at the State Fair (have to remember to look!), I might have to put a tail on it and call it a bookmark.  Since I can only enter one thing in each category in the State Fair, I can't put the dinosaur and the butterfly in unless one of them fits somewhere besides "other".

These are seven of the Christmas ornaments I made using Jon Yusoff's snowflake patterns, and some little bits of fillers of one kind or another (one went to the marvelous Jeff).  I entered them as a set and ended up with a sweepstakes ribbon!  It made me laugh, though:  the comment card said "Nice even loops, nice way to display" -- so I got a ribbon for display, or for tatting?  Which ever, I have to thank Jon for such lovely patterns.

County Fair

Fair season is just plain fun.  I like entering my bits and pieces in the fair -- it's the one bit of exhibitionism I engage in (no need to actually show your face in public).  The County Fair is especially fun.   There are no entrance fees, so there are no prizes except ribbons (well, okay, Best of Show gets something else -- this year it was a large glass compote bowl).  Everyone is allowed to enter two things in each category.  I entered two in every tatting category except table runner.  I don't have tables that run.  It's hard to take pictures of the stuff at the fair because they put the tatting in a glass case, or on a table behind the glass case.
I'm showing this one first, because I have to say "Thanks!" again to Jess.  On the judge's card was the comment "Love the colors!"  Yeah, me too.  This is what I did with the Sunset thread and doily Jess dyed:

I made up the edging based on all the other split chain pieces I've been experimenting with for a month or so.  It looked a little odd stuck out there on the edge, so I wound some size 40 peach colored thread, onto a bent paper clip for a shuttle and did the little short arches woven in and out of the edging legs (as if that makes sense).  I also used the peach thread to make another round on the edging (there wouldn't have been enough of the Sunset to do another edging round).  It turned out icky looking so I cut it off.  I'm glad I didn't use the rest of the Sunset after all.  That would have been such a waste.  This one is going back in my tatting drawer until time for entries in the State Fair -- I have confidence in it, because the colors are beautiful.

I won! Wow, did I win!

Jess from Tat-ilicious did a giveaway for a skein of her hand-dyed thread just for selecting colors for a variegate and giving it a name.  I like thread.  I really like hand-dyed thread.  I offered up Susnrise (pale pinks, yellows and oranges).  Oh, my goodness!  Sacrificing a shuttle to the Random Number gods must have worked (I don't think they tat, so they didn't know it was just a Susan Bates aero knockoff).  Anyway, I won!  Jess is very generous, though.  I didn't just win one skein of thread, I got all this stuff:

I could hardly believe it!  There's a skein of Sunrise (size 40) and a little doily center dyed to match.  One skein each of Esmeralda (size 80), and Harvest (size 40), and one sample skein each of Purple Pansy and Queen Anthias (both size 40).  THEN there were little purple beads with two holes, two green rings and two pearly-white ones and two really great square buttons.
I'm rich!  If you'd like some of this thread hop on over to Jess's Etsy shop.

Oh, I didn't get a picture, but both of the girls want the tin it all came it -- Hello Kitty!  I told them when they learn to tat then they could, maybe, have a tatter's-tin.  Until then it's mine, mine, all mine!

Speaking of Split Chains

You can't imagine the delight I felt in figuring out this split chain thing.  I could do them, but I didn't like it -- and only knew one way to make it work so sometimes half my chain was front side and the other half was back side (weird looking). 
I sat down with a shuttle and a bit of left-over thread and made this string of stuff all hooked together with split chains.  Then I hunted up a couple of other shuttles with more left-over thread and made this interesting little motif.  I was disgusted to run out of thread and not be able to find the ball of thread to add more (that pink and blue stuff is here somewhere!). 
Next, I wound on two colors of Sulky and started again.  I did more rows than the first one, but it lost it's definition and started to look very cramped.  I ran out of thread then. Very likely a good thing, because I'd tatted myself into a corner, so to speak, and the rounds were not ending in good places to start a new one.
Somewhere around here is another start but with changes which have, so far, left a bit more defined negative space.  I'll post that another time.  Maybe I could actually write down a pattern instead of just going around and around where ever the shuttles feel like going.  Nah, prob'ly not.  Hmmm...but maybe that second incarnation, as a single motif, would be possible.

Split Chain

If you need to know how to do one, do it well, and do it easily click on over to Le Blog de Frivole!  She has posted two videos of Marie Smith's method -- one for regular tatting and one for fs/bs tatting.  I tried both last night.  Oooooooh, WOW!   This is hands-down the neatest, easiest method I've ever tried.  Even I can't tell which part of the chain was the direct-tatted side on my own work!
Thanks so much for posting this, Frivole, and even more thanks for sharing it, Marie.