State Fair

Breanna made a quilted tote this year, her first fair entry! 

She made the front piece with grandma's instruction last spring, then turned it into a fun purse.

And the back.

And she was delighted to go to the fair and find she'd gotten a 1st place blue ribbon!

As usual, I waited till the last minute (literally, the week they were to be turned in...), and wanted to try out Crazy Mom Quilt's zig-zag pattern.  I wanted to make a twin size to be more useful... but of course didn't have enough fabric- and since it was stuff from my stash the stores quit selling it awhile ago.

So instead I made it into a large rectangle, quilted it.....

and made 4 coordinating placemats.

And some pot holders.

I'd been saving these fabrics to make something for my friend, Ellen, who loves these colors.  Sorry, Ellen, hope you don't mind honorable mention.

This baby quilt was from scraps, and certainly not what I'd consider entry quality- but I decided to enter it anyway.

Second place isn't too bad!

I bought these coordinating fabrics to make my sister an apron, but in my last-minute dash for fabric to make another entry for the fair- I decided to use them.  No pushing, Anna, but it's ready in case you get the urge!  And by the way, I am still going to make you an apron.

First Place!

Then I tried another zig-zag quilt, using some fun fabric from mom that had tiny buttons all over- along with a rainbow of bright colored scraps.  The quilting was new for me, but I love how it turned out!  Somewhere I saw a recommendation to do lots of semi-straight lines.  This is supposedly a great way to do regular machine quilting, but on the longarm it was a breeze!  I found it worked best to make some stabilizing lines a couple inches apart, then go back and fill in.

And the back I liked even better, this has lots of texture!

And when I saw it at the fair with a "Division Champion" ribbon, I almost fainted.  I actually like the back better, but I guess they must have thought my construction was good?

Looking back at my first fair entry from last year..... I see that I've made a ton of improvement.  It turned out pretty and was a lot of work and time- but the construction was certainly nothing like the rainbow quilt this year.  And even though it's not really big enough for our king-size bed, we've been using it anyway.  I still like to look at it, and our new place is going to have a cute little sewing room where I can hang it on the wall.

And although the quilts are my favorite part of the fair, there are other things that go on there.  Here in Alaska we have some extreme daylight conditions all summer, which makes for some giant pumpkins!  This 1101-pound whopper is the biggest ever recorded!

This one was pretty puny, he was only 902 pounds...  =)

And we showed up just in time to watch some of the livestock judging, namely swine (pigs); which brought great curiosity from the kids, and brought back a whole lot of 4-H memories for me.  We're thinking it might be nice to get some animals when we move to the farm.

Breanna loves the pony rides every year... but this year Levi wanted to try.  I wasn't sure he'd really go for it, but he assured me he was ready, and thoroughly loved it!  Only problem was, he didn't want to get off when it was done!  =)

Miss B.

Andy was content to be an observer.

At the lumberjack show one of the woodsman was giving mommy a hard time, so when he cut the small chair from a log- he offered it to Levi.  He turned extremely shy and refused to be coerced up there, which made Breanna turn extremely shy too- so mommy went up and sat Levi on it.  Now that we're home and there are no staring crowds, they are both quite adamant about their ownership of it.

Andy was only a couple weeks old at last year's fair, so we got to teach him about some of the finer things there- one being elephant ears slathered in cream-cheese frosting and powdered sugar!

Levi always loves to try out the motorcycles.

And Breanna was content to ride in the semi.

Andy seemed to enjoy it just as much from the sidelines.

Then Daddy took him on the big slide.

They all love that one!

Mommy got to go on the egg-beater with the big kids.

Andy's first ride on the carousel.

Some cute little heads I got to watch while pushing the stroller.

Another great fair, next year I guess it'll be the Oregon fairs we attend!