Well, that's no Fair!

Oh boy, do I feel like a dummy!

The fair exhibitor drop off was last night, and I learned very quickly that I definitely interpreted the instructions for the photo contest wrong.

As someone who's never done this before, and who hasn't been to a fair in a zillion years, it was not clear to me that the four 4x6 snapshot photographs on each poster board were supposed to be DIFFERENT. I did wonder why they would need four of the same photo, but I assumed there were four judges or something that all wanted to look at one. I even asked a friend who's done this for years, but I guess she too assumed I wasn't an idiot and didn't specify that they should be a SERIES of images, not four duplicates.

Duh. Who wouldn't want four identical pictures of a mermaid tail?

Maybe I'll sneak over there once the fair opens and stick some more pictures up. I know it won't help for the judging, which is happening in literally a half an hour as I type (...yes, I frantically printed more pictures hoping I could miraculously make it there in time. But no. It would take me at least a half hour to get to the fair grounds from Pulaski, so I'm out of luck.), but it will make me feel better! Also, I sure hope they leave the names hidden once they open the exhibits up for viewing! Fortunately, the three pictures that I did submit (which were apparently supposed to be 12) are really nice pictures, and hopefully prove that I'm not completely incompetent. If I had do-overs:

"CHILDREN; OUTDOORS"

"FAMILY GATHERING OR CELEBRATION"

I'm not complaining, though. I should have done my research a little better, instead of assuming that they'd prefer an edited choice (like in photography class in college) instead of a selection of a few favorites. At least I know I did the enlargements right!!! ha ha... I had more of those anyways.

What I've learned from this experience is that the Fair system is rooted in tradition; it's really confusing to newcomers but if it has been a part of your life since forever, it's a no-brainer. That was pretty obviously shown on the face of the lady who was receiving entries; she looked at me like I tried to eat a rock or something.

Something like this...

But at least it's not just me. Neil was confused about the home brew competition too. The Fair Book states that the judging is based on- but not in accordance with- the BJCP scoring system, which is the standard for home brewing competitions. It then asked to label the bottles with both the fair's class number, then the BJCP category and subcategory, and included a link to the BJCP styles list from 2004. Since their system changes pretty much yearly as well, we were so confused we just decided to wait until we got there. And then we found out that they actually print cards for all entries ahead of time, so we didn't even have to worry about it! I think... but now that I read the book again... maybe we were supposed to label each bottle too? I'm so lost.

Fortunately, the quilting and crocheting submissions were self-explanatory. I was only able to finish my snowflake quilt in time (I was delayed waiting on thread I ordered, and I was too cheap to go buy some in a store), but it turned out kind of awesome so I'm happy with that. I'm also pretty sure it was the only submission in its category... so... instant best of show?!?! Ha ha. We'll see.

Using my mother in law's long arm machine was so much fun! It was definitely easier to move the quilt around on a table as opposed to a sewing machine arm. And oddly enough, FMQ on my  machine seems to have gotten easier after using it! Perhaps I'm just more comfortable with the whole idea, and have relaxed a bit. Perhaps it was the wine.

Here goes!

Miss Paulie, my supervisor.

It is a universal truth: cats loves quilts. Paulie approves.

For my crochet entry, I decided to go with the old granny hexagon tote bag. Despite all that effort I put into the tapestry stitch bag, I just wasn't happy with how it turned out. I couldn't decide how to finish it either, so it basically would have been a clutch with a zipper had I dropped it off yesterday.


All in all, this has been an interesting and unnecessarily stressful endeavor! Ha ha. Next time we'll know... and hopefully it's not a complete bust! We'll just have to wait and see.

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