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Sunday, September 26, 2010

sour grapes, or a little whine

back from the bloom fair where i found out if my knits won any prizes.  see for yourself:

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my xmas tree skirt came in first place.  but it was the only item in the category, so it was an automatic first place.


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the albatross came in second.  i'm honestly surprised it did that well.


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monkey came in second.  a bit surprised here too.  i thought it'd come in first.  come, on it was freakin' monkey, in glitter yarn!  the winner was a cable design.  most of the other socks were knit with self striping yarn, which make beautiful socks but aren't terribly clever either unless you knit a design with them.  here's the rest of the sock competition:


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that brownish blob left of the yellow ribbon is my sock monkey hat.  it took third place.  i thought it would place higher too.  i honestly don't remember what the first and second place hats looked like.  probably lace, or cable.  my hat had intarsia, but it wasn't too complicated so probably not enough to place very high.  i don't know who hung the projects, but i almost missed seeing my hat entirely.  it was hung at the bottom with the monkey face facing inward, so all anyone could see was this plain brown hat.  i surely hope the hat wasn't hanging like that during judging.  no one got the effect of the hat that way.  or perhaps, becos some people consider sock monkeys racist, it didn't place very high.  oh well, whatever.




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waves didn't place at all.  i'm not sure i'm entirely surprised by that.  the first place winner was entrelac, and second place was lacy.  i thought my feather and fan with the pomp a doodle would be different enough to place.  baby blankets are a popular category, and i hedged my bets when i was registered.  oh well.




i'm at loose ends with my awards.  obviously, i'm happy that i placed and did so well.  the bloom fair is one of the largest in the state, and to place at all is a great honor.  on the other hand, i wonder if the work was my very best?  what could have i done differently?


i'm trying really hard not to compare the rewards to my placements at the county expo.  i was the only entry in some of the categories there, so it was an instant win.  there were also fewer entries at the expo.  would my butterfly shawl have won instead of the albatross?  what about my dubm brayn socks?  


entering work into any competition is a gamble  you have to use your best judgement in choosing your best work.  when choosing projects to exhibit, i look at them like a judge.  i'm sure they look at technique (fair isle vs. garter stitch), the difficulty of the work (cable knit sock vs. plain vanilla self striping sock), and how neatly the project is finished (pieces neatly fastened together, ends buried in the work).  i'm pretty certain the kind of yarn isn't considered, becos the majority of the winners were crap acrylic.  


i'm trying really hard not to be sour grapes.  the projects that won really were the best.  one thing i take away from my exhibition experiences is the inspiration that i can do better next year, and to seek the best projects to reach that goal.  






originally we were going to take the boy out of school and go to fair.  however, since it is fair week, and since it hasn't rained all summer, of course it's suppose to rain the day we want to go.  that's why we went today, after church, becos i really hate going to the fair when it rains or after it rains.  hate the mud, hate the puddles, hate the crowds.  


we only took the boy, and mom and dad stayed home with the kiddos.  i'm glad we did that, becos the place was crowded and nothing is more annoying than pushing a stroller (never mind a side by side stroller) through a crowd of people who walk around with their heads up their arses.


after we saw my projects, we got fries and a kohrs orange drink.  the boy wanted to play a game, so we found a pick a duck game where the boy won a stuffed dog.  we walked down to the rides area, and the boy and i road the flying bobs and the tilt a whirl, and the boy and hubby rode the haunted coal mine.  naturally i got sick after riding the tilt a whirl and had to sit a while to wait out the nausea.  naturally, the only benches we could find were either near smokers or behind a smelly dumpster.  the smokers made me sicker, so i chose the dumpster.  


tired, hot and nauseated, we worked our way back to the car.  the boy kept badgering to ride more rides, but dang the tickets were expensive.  we spent nearly $30 to ride **3** rides.  for that price we can get a handstamp at knoebels and the boy can ride to his heart's content.  then the boy wanted to play more games, but with some being $5 a pop with no guarantee of a win, we put our foot down.  hubby got some birch beer, and we got hewletts sausage sandwiches to take back to mom and dad.

didn't walk through the grandstand.  didn't walk through the exhibit buildings.  didn't even see the dog show.  we came home with hubby's birch beer, the sandwiches, and the boy's stuffy.  what a difference to other years, when we'd come home with all kinds of free stuff, vittles, and souvenirs.

next year we hope to go on a weekday morning (no crowds) plus we get finished early.  and hopefully next year i'll more goodies to exhibit, and try for more prizes.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations to you - Bloomsburg is a big deal, so I think it's an honor indeed!
    Can you believe that I've never been to the Bloomsburg Fair? Seriously!
    We have to get together to knit soon.....I'm missing someone who understands the knitting thing.....

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