Back to the Fair

Usually, people (who aren't doing it for a living) do crafts for just themselves, their friends, and their families. The greatest reward is to see someone wearing or using what you made. But sometimes, people get together to show off what they have created, and hope for accolades beyond the usual. For instance, I submitted two pieces this year to the Maryland State Fair.

Last year, I submitted two pieces to the fair and got one 3rd place ribbon and one participation ribbon. This year...

First place and president's award

For my hat-neckwarmer combo, I got first place in category (hat/scarf combos) and a president's award! For my skirt, no award (but they only awarded one ribbon for the category of original item of clothing anyway).

No ribbons. But I like the way they displayed the piece.

Of course, the other great thing about going to the fair (besides the accolades) is seeing what other people have made. Let's look at a few of the ones that I particularly noticed (apologies for the terrible photos, most of these were behind plastic wrap).

First, we have a really nice little example of entrelac. I am a big fan of the technique, and have been meaning to do a post on it for a while. I love how the knitting looks like a woven basket.

Hat (not mine, obviously)

Next, a really pretty scarf with a cabled center. When I was a kid, and first learning to knit, my grandmother told me that she would teach me cabling when I had gotten a bit better at knitting. Somehow, this convinced me that cabling was this incredibly difficult thing, and was the pinnacle of knitting skill. Truthfully, cabling is pretty simple as a technique. But it makes it very hard to fix mistakes, and can make charting or describing patterns nearly impossible. I like this simple cable though, and would totally wear the scarf:

A scarf with a cabled center

Next up, a few pieces with really nice colors

I don't really do stranded knitting or intarsia, because I like the backs of my pieces to look as good as the fronts. But I have to say, these are some gorgeous projects.

There were also some skeins of handspun. I could have submitted, but I am a lot less confident in my spinning skill than my knitting, since I have only been doing it a few years.

Prize-winning handspun skeins

There were some great pieces in the other arts categories too (basket-weaving, costumes, needlepoint, etc.) but I think that is enough for now. I do want to leave you with the other great part of going to the fair: meeting your fiber animals up close and personal.

4-H Alpacas, recently sheared

A goat, deciding to check out what her neighbor has.

Starting a Project

Today, I am starting a new project, and I though that I would talk a bit about how I choose what to do.

First of all, I decided to start a new knitting project because I don't have any small projects on the needles at the moment, and sometimes you just need something portable.

The first step I do when starting a new project is to look at my yarn stash, either online (I have pictures of everything up on Ravelry) or just digging around in the bins. I have talked about my yarn-buying strategies in the past, I have a bunch of yarn that was bought with a specific project (though not a pattern) in mind, so I might be inspired to start one of those. Or, I also just have a bunch of random yarn (either leftovers from other projects, spinning experiments, gifts, or impulse buys) and I might be inspired to make something with that. Sometimes, if I am starting a new project because I have a particular type of knitting I want to do, I will look through my library of patterns instead of my yarn.

Today, I figured that I would start by putting away some of the things I collected for my spinning class, and immediately saw a skein of handspun that I have been meaning to make into something.

Tweed jacob yarn

I made the yarn in the Fall of 2014, from undyed jacob sheep roving, on the basic spindle that I learned on on. It was an early effort, so it is not incredibly even.

Looking through my projects the other day, I noticed that I have made hats for every member of my family except my dad. I made a mental note that I should make him something, then immediately forgot.

But when I saw the yarn, that little note pinged my consciousness, and I decided that a good quick project will be a hat. (I make a lot of those, don't I)

So, I have my yarn, I have my project, now I just need a pattern.

I could do a pattern I have done before. But I mostly make women's hats, so I decided I would look and see what else is available.

First, I set my criteria.

The hat must be a cold-weather hat, using one color of aran or bulky yarn, that would be good for a man.
Also, no complex cables or detailed patterns, because the yarn is rather woolen (in layman terms: fluffy), so patterns are not likely to stand out.

I plugged the following criteria into my Ravelry Pattern Search:

Knitting
Free or in my library
Hats  (any kind)
One color of yarn
Aran or bulky yarn weight
NOT women

And then I started looking at pictures. I didn't want anything slouchy, lacy, or with fancy stitches, which got rid of a lot of the top hits.

But two patterns looked interesting:

The Gnarly Hat, and
The Gentleman's Fancy Hat

But I think I will go with the Gentleman's Fancy Hat.

So, I have my yarn and my pattern. All I need to do is call my dad and get his size, and I am ready to start.

A Skirt: Finished!

I finished my beach skirt!

When I last wrote about this project, in June, I was just starting the purple part at the top, and I said I would show you the pattern later. Well, later has come:

Wavy pattern with knits and purls

I created this pattern by a simple alternating pattern of knits and purls. I had a few false starts though. I actually miscalculated the number of stitches I had, and tried to do repetitions of 18. Then, when I realized that it wouldn't work, I used my fixer tool to good stead and changed it to repetitions of 12.

I am, of course, leaving out that I tried a different pattern first. My first version had a thin wavy line instead of what you see here - but I didn't like it. The nice thing about knit/purl patterns, is that they are relatively easy to change, without redoing everything: just let a single stitch unravel, and bring it back up the way that you really want it to be.

When I had the skirt as long as I wanted it, I needed to make a sheath for a drawstring. It wasn't that hard, but there were a lot of stitches on different holders to keep track of. I knit each stitch forward and back to double the number of stitches, put the back stitches on a string to hold, and knit up the front stitches (leaving a hole in the front for the drawstring). Then I put those stitches on circular needle to hold, and knit up the back stitches. After putting in the drawstring, I used kitchener stitch to bind it up.

Ready to kitchener. There are four needles, a drawstring, and a stitch holder in the picture. It was a lot to keep track of, and things kept falling off the holders because I was too lazy to use a real stitch holder.

The drawstring was actually pretty easy to make though. I just got a length of each of the three colors of yarn and spun them together. Then I folded it in half, and plyed them. It is a great technique for quickly making a thick string that isn't too long.

Drawstring

To fit with my ocean theme, I also added silver fish beads (from Etsy)  to the ends of the drawstring, to give it a little weight.

Finally, I had a stain to cover up, so I was going to use some handspun yarn to make "foam". Unfortunately, stitching using the yarn did not look good - the yarn was too thick, and uneven, and it didn't look like foam.

But I was able to sew some thick ramboullet roving to the skirt directly, and it looked better.

What do you think? Does it look sea-foam like?

Well, all in all, I think the skirt came out...ok. It is a bit large for me, and the drawstring sheath is a little loose. Also, it came out as a bit of a "mermaid" cut. because of the herringbone pattern. Not really my thing.

Well, enough criticisms. What do you think?

Skirt: front

Skirt: side

Skirt: Back