A bookmark and the Kansas State Fair 1

I'll start off with what I made when I got home from the state fair Saturday, a bookmark for the "Bookmark a Month Challenge" on The Tatting Forums. This is made with Manuela size 20 in color 021 (thanks AnneB for the translation!) I actually made one first in Lizbeth Jellybean but I made many of the picots too long. In fact, I dislike it so much that I almost didn't finish it. But I forced myself to and then made this one. I didn't use any pattern for this, though I think I've seen something similar somewhere.

The Kansas state fair was fun and it was a beautiful day for it. But there was very little tatting this year. I was very disappointed and angry at myself for not trying harder to get something entered. My sister and I have agreed that we both will enter at least one thing next year, and maybe more. With us encouraging each other I think it just might be a reality next September.

These pictures are of the only tatting I found there this year. They may be an item or two I missed because of the way they displayed them, but not more.

Nice display, isn't it? A great idea for all those snowflakes I like to make.
Check out the multiple ribbons through the center - another nice idea.
Kind of disappointing that they left the ribbon in front of the doily. The earrings and snowflake didn't show up well with the tag behind them, either. I didn't do such a great job on taking these pictures, did I?
That white bar along the bottom is a reflection of the light fixture. This was not hanging in a place that I could get any closer to it.

In the Domestic Arts building where the tatting is displayed they have the textile arts such as quilts, embroidery, crochet, knitting and such as well as the foods. They give demonstrations of these types through-out each day which can be fun to watch. My sister and I watched a felting demonstration, which was very interesting, especially as neither one of us knew what it was before it started. It was given by a woman from 'Yarn', a yarn store in Hutchinson, which is home to the state fair.

She even let us try adding a few colorful touches to the piece that we watched her make after it was rinsed and ready to be decorated. This is me giving it a try. It was very interesting to watch but I have way too many things I want to do to really want to do this myself. There aren't enough hours in a day for me to take up another hobby!

There were some wonderful quilts, too, lots and lots of them. This is only a very small fraction of what they had on display. I'm glad I'm not a judge - I don't see how they can decide on which ones are the best.
This one looks to be a queen or king size quilt done entirely in crazy quilting. It was amazing! BTW, I didn't pull back the plastic to look at it but I took advantage of it to take a picture. My picture does not do this quilt justice of how amazing it is and the colors aren't quite right either. It is spectacular! The judges thought so, too, it got a Best of Show ribbon (but not grand champion or runner up).
There wasn't a lot of knitting or crochet either, though a lot more than the tatting. I just thought this crocheted wedding dress was so beautiful. I didn't see a ribbon on it, but it could have been tucked in behind somewhere.

These are the State Fair dolls. They are supposed to represent a favorite part of the fair. Didn't they have some cute ideas for these?

There are so many things I wanted to take pictures of that I didn't! Such as the Duct tape clothing (completely out of different colored Duct tape) and the most original hand bags (made from the same pattern but using unusual mediums) but my batteries in the camera were running low. And did I bring any more? NO. Could I find any place to buy any? NO. And my grandson was coming so I had to be stingy on picture taking until I could get a few (okay, a lot) of him enjoying his first fair. Those are pictures I'll be sharing in another post.

My tea for today's Tatting Tea Tuesday was a nod in the direction of the cabinet I keep it in. We had several errands to run and a multitude of things that had to get done around the house today and I just didn't take the time to fix myself any. I did get some tatting done that I'm pretty excited about, but that, too, will have to wait for another post.

May all of you have a wonderful week. Try to get in a little tatting if you can!

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