fair winnings

this past week was our county fair, and i entered sweet william, stained glass mittens, dead fish hat, freddie's owlet sweater and gram's sunday swing socks.  i did well!

my socks, shawl and hat won first place;  the sweater came in second (which i expected;  first place went to another cable sweater).  my mittens came in third, which stymied me.  the first place winner was a pair of baby mitts (no thumbs!) with ribbon edging, and second place was a small pair of mittens in a variegated yarn.  nothing special.  perhaps mine placed lower becos they were unconventional mittens.  maybe the floats of my colorwork weren't consistent (actually they weren't too bad considering i never did colorwork before).  when i fixed the one mitten over (it had a pointier tip so i frogged and re-decreased), i couldn't remember where the beginning of the rounds started, and i think it twisted the thumb out of place (it was a right hand mitten, and it turned into a side thumb instead).  who knows?


next year, i want to inquire about the judging forms - some competitions release the judging results and comments.  i would love to know the judging criteria and why, for example, the simple baby mitten placed higher than a colorwork mitten.

i shouldn't kvetch.  i did very well, and i'm happy for the results!  as always, i learned a lot, and now i can plan ahead for next year!