Warren County Fair 2011

The Warren County Fair was held while I was away in Florida with Kara and the girls. I had everything packed and labeled so Jimmy could take them out and get them entered. I was holding my breath until I got a phone call from him saying everything went off without a hitch. Whew!

The "Best of Show" ribbon was won (plus 1st place) for the raincoat, hat, bag and dog I made for the American Girl doll. I had also tried to make a green "pleather" raincoat and hat, but that



stuff is MURDER to try to sew! Never again. I'll stick to real fabric. The little bag also has a small spiral bound pad and a "toothpick" pencil. Her umbrella is a circle of fabric with toothpick "spokes" that I gathered and tied to a thin dowel rod with a wooden bead at the top. It can't be opened, but looked so cute with the raincoat. The dress beneath the coat is pretty blue/yellow/white flowers. I used that same fabric as the trim on the coat.


The other AG doll outfit was a knitted poncho, skirt, top, mittens, boots
hat, and messenger bag. The yarn for the skirt, mittens, boots and hat was turquoise and the yarn for the poncho was a brown/turquoise variegated. Maggie and Emma were excited to know that they would be getting the outfits after the fair! This doll's bag also had a little notebook and "pencil".


The afghan was a beautiful shade of royal blue and it took me FOREVER to get it crocheted. It had several different stitches - popcorn, cables, zigzags - and I had to rip it out several times because I'd look at it and see that 4 rows below, or so, had a mistake! Rats!! I was happy that it won a 2nd place ribbon but I really, really thought it was a 1st place winner. Even Kara's friend (who won 1st) thought it was going to be the winner. Rats, again!

These were just three of the 16 items I had made. I received 16 ribbons, plus the "Best of Show" ribbon. The money prizes totaled about $47. I'll never be rich but I enjoy making things.

2010 Warren County Fair

This year's Best In Show was an outfit for the AG doll (whose name happens to be Emma!) A friend had given me a piece of fabric with large lavender/purple flowers on it and I found a matching solid lavender remnant in my fabric box. I put together this cute dress and jacket and made a slip to go under it and, voila! Another prize winner.

The other Blue ribbon winners were a crocheted gown for a 11" fashion doll, a doily, crocheted baby socks and mittens, a scrapbook of Jimmy and me before kids came along, a green/white crocheted purse, a crocheted hat for Emma (the g'daughter, not the doll), a pair of thread crocheted baby booties, 3 crocheted potholders. The Red ribbon winners were a crocheted horse for Alex and a yellow crocheted "pineapple" bookmark. The White ribbon winners were for a crocheted afghan and 2 green/white crocheted hot mats. The x-stitched covered bridge didn't win anything. Sigh....

Next year, I think I'll try to add some knitted items. Maybe I'll also try to do some more "one-stroke" painting. I won for that several times in the past. The next scrapbook will be the one I'm making now for Alex.

Here are a few of the knitted items I made for the AG dolls for my g'daughters. I found the patterns on the internet and used up a lot of leftover yarns. The first outfit isn't knitted, of course, it's sewn and I added some embroidery. I think I'll do embroidery on the one of the legs, too.

My Little Crafter

Our 42nd wedding anniversary is tomorrow, September 23. Yesterday Emma disappeared upstairs for a few minutes before her mother came to pick them up. She came back down with a card she had made for us.

Using the Cricut, she cut out the champagne glass and glued it to the front of a card that she had covered with patterned paper. Inside she wrote:

Happy Anavirsry, Love Emma and Maggie.

She also drew a heart with red pen. And to top it all off, she applied one of her "Handmade by Emma" stickers to the back.

This is one of the anniversary cards I'll be sure to keep.

The 2009 County Fair

I took fifteen items to the Warren County fair this year. When I went back to get them, I had my granddaughter Emma with me. We were picking the things up before church, so we had to get in, get them, and get back before Sunday School started.

I was pretty sure the crocheted Barbie gown would get a blue ribbon and I was right. The doll was over on the "Best of Show" table with another hugh rosette ribbon. The judges liked the crocheted umbrella and the fact that the doll was wearing pantaloons. I worked a long time on that outfit. I'm already trying to decided which pattern I'll make for next year. What the heck and I going to do with all the dolls?

The other first place winners were a cross-stitch picture of an old barn and antique car that I had used an old wooden tray as the frame; a dress and apron for an 18" (American Girl) doll; a crocheted bear (black) wearing a crocheted dress and hat (green); an 8x8 scrapbook "Our Family", that has pictures and notations of all our ancestors; a crocheted "Betty Boop" potholder; a crocheted doily; a crocheted pocketbook; a "Pumpkin Queen" centerpiece.

Second place winners were the painted box (Donna Dewberry "One Stroke" painting); a blue crocheted and beaded bookmark and a crocheted hooded sweater with mittens for Alex. The third place winner was a Spring grapevine wreath.

After church, when I got home, I wanted to lay them out on the table and take pictures. (I'll post them here after I get them uploaded) After getting everything out of the boxes, I realized I was missing two items! A cross-stitch advent calendar and a fabric teddy bear. Yikes! Were the fair people still there? Would I get there in time? Would someone hold them for me???

Kara, the girls and I rushed back to the fair building and yes, they were still there! Thank Goodness. I hurried inside and found they were just about ready to leave. There were my two missing items - the advent calendar (no ribbon!!!) and the fabric teddy bear with a "BEST IN SHOW ribbon!! They told me it was sitting with all the other "Best in Show" entries, didn't I see it when I picked up the Barbie doll? Well, obviously no!

When Emma and I had gone before church, she was Chatty Cathy and I was trying to find all my entries and listen to her at the same time. It's pretty well established that I can't do both! She even said later that she saw the advent calendar and thought it was theirs, but since I didn't get it, she figured it wasn't the one they had. Any other time, she would have said "Nanny! Is that the one you made for us?" But, not this time. This time she decided to stop talking.

Newest Cards

These are two samples of cards I've been making lately. I had forgotten how to write in a circle with MSWord, but found the instructions on a card-making forum. I think it adds alot to the card. The champagne glasses are from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge (Cricut). I added a piece of vellum behind the glasses and glued little tiny clear marbles to the vellum.

I love the black and white paper, too. I made several variations of both cards.

Stitch This!

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. I've been trying to use my PC Stitch program and I've encountered one problem after another. Since I'm having so much trouble, I decided the best thing to do would be to start from the beginning.

I opened the program as if I had never seen it before (I've had it for about seven years!). I pretended that I was a newbie and was going to start with the tutorials. OK. Click on the icon to get it all started. Now comes the first obstacle. A little window opened up and said it was starting the install wizard. Hmmmm. It's been installed for seven years. Ok, never mind. The little green dots go across the little screen, everything seems to be going along splendidly. Oops. A little message comes up that I need to install Photo Explosion SE. I check my programs list and see that I have Photo Explosion already.

After clicking on the "close" button about a gazillion times, the stupid little box goes away and the program starts. What?!? Why is it starting? What about the Photo Explosion SE it demanded from me a few minutes ago?!?

Never mind. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Just relax and enjoy this nice little program. Sit up straight, relax my shoulders and let's get on with it. Ok. The program opens and I click on the tutorials box. I've decided that I'm a newbie, right? I click on the first tutorial. Click this, click that, yawn, boring. But I've decided to go from the very beginning. Ok. That's done. Let's click on the second tutorial.

This one is about importing pictures. It doesn't want me to import my own pictures, yet. It wants me to open its own first, to get the hang of it. I'll all for that. I click on the "import" button, I see the box it wants me to open. I open that box. Now the instructions tell me to open a file that the installation program put on my hard drive. I see two files but they aren't the one I need. It's a picture of two little kids. Nope. Nowhere. Gritting my teeth, now. Wiping sweat from my brow. I search my program list. Nothing.

I've been at this for about 90 minutes. Jimmy wants to use the computer. Hah! Fat chance. I'm going to get this thing worked out or the computer goes out the window.

My next question is - can I uninstall this program and reinstall it? Will that work? I've got an email out to the PC Stitch company. I wonder if this will take as long as the Cricut fiasco did? That was about two weeks.