Entries are in!

We entered everything Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Trent entered all the items for the Arts, Crafts, Hobbies and Photography Building. I am entering a tie dyed t-shirt I made for Claire. Sorry no pictures and these four photos:
In clockwise order starting at the top left corner: Picture of Claire is for portrait-child (studio or candid), the picture of the cupcakes is for designs or patterns, abstracts, the picture of Eleanor is for Photojournalism (picture telling a story/showing emotion) and the picture of Macy is for Montgomery County Fair Scene.

Ben entered a picture from his school art class, two photographs, his pinewood derby car, a tie dyed t-shirt and a bee he made for a science project this year.

Macy entered several pictures she drew both at home and from school and a tie dyed t-shirt.

Eleanor entered a few pictures she drew and painted and a tie dyed t-shirt.

Trent entered four photos and his collection of Restaurant business cards.

Sorry there are no pictures of the items the kids and Trent entered other than the pinewood derby car which you can find here.

On Friday we entered our items for the Home Arts Building.

I entered the following items:

Clothing

Smocked Bishop dress, Lined Coat, Skirt, Picture smocked item.

Infant Garment

Everyday dress ages 6-12

Toys and Special Classes

Doll Clothes (five or more outfits) 18" doll or larger.

I was hoping to enter this as well, but as much as I wanted to, especially after how I fought with it for several hours, I had to concede it was not fairworthy and would detract from the other items:

Since I made these to give to Macy for her birthday or Christmas, she'll still get the outfit, I just didn't enter it in the fair. I also have a denim jacket that I had cut out but didn't have time to finish because of our head lice adventure (yes, I too have had the fun of getting them-ugh!). I will finish it for Christmas/Birthday and if it's good, then I'll make some more outfits to go with it and enter those next year.
Plus a jumper dress I made for Eleanor for her first day of school last year, but she never wore it. It's very similar to this dress. Same pattern, different material.

Baked Goods and Candies

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies
found here.

And a Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake. Sorry I don't have a photo, we were running out the door and didn't have time. It looked much better than my first attempt so I'm hopeful it will do well.

Macy entered her shorts and these snickerdoodles:
Eleanor entered a skirt and these chocolate mint cookies:
Ben entered these brownies with browned butter peanut butter cup frosting:
I think Ben's brownies will do the best. They were amazing. We entered all the kids baked items twice. In their age division which is more general (all brownies and cookies are judged together) and then more specific (but against the adults) like brownies, special topping, snickerdoodles and sandwich cookies.

Trent entered a toilet for the Toilet decorating contest. He made a "Time Latrine". Sorry I don't have a picture right at the moment. It was a family effort. He got a toilet from Freecycle and painted it silver. The kids came up with some of the design elements and the rules for usage to be posted on the lid. I made a fake magazine cover from this site and attached it to a real magazine to put in the holder on the side of the toilet. Here's a picture of what the cover looked like:
Trent said he saw someone looking through the magazine. I guess it was pretty convincing. It was actually History Magazine. Like there's really a Time Travel Digest (at least I don't think there is!) We made a pretend computer on the back of the tank using an old clock and keyboard. Disaster struck when the clock fell off at the fairgrounds and the glass broke. It kind of ruined it, but oh well. While I was entering my items I was telling the person helping me about it. She said when they entered a toilet a couple of years ago they cracked their tank. I think it has to be one of the hardest projects to complete and get to the fairgrounds in one piece! So far it seems our toilet has been popular with the middle school crowd. We'll see how it does with the judges.

Last but not least, this is my entry for the You be the Judge Contest:
Sorry, but this is the only picture I have. I forgot to take a picture of the completed project. It's a book bag for head start students. I folded the bag in half and sewed where you see the chalk lines. I then placed a copy of the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" inside. I am very pleased with how this turned out. I hope it does well.

Sorry for the long post, but there it is. We'll find out how everything did on Monday.

Head Lice

It was bound to happen and now it has. Fair entries are due tomorrow and I'm mostly done, except three of my children have head lice. I discovered this morning and have begun cleaning procedures. My husband is on his way home to come help. The kids are disappointed because it means they will miss Vacation Bible School today. I probably have it too. Let the nit picking begin. Sigh . . .

Infant's Garment

One more project finished! I made this for a friend's grandson. Overall I'm pleased with the construction. I tried making this entire outfit pretending I didn't have a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine or a serger. I used mostly flat felled seams with my feller foot. I actually have two feet, different sizes and used both. Some of the seams don't lie as flat as I had hoped and I'll probably get a bad mark for that from the judges. And then we have this:
I am terrible at dealing with the whole button placket meets the seam sort of thing. There is always fraying (even when I stay stitch) and this time it was worse because I tried to use a flat felled seam and probably shouldn't have. So I came up with the brilliant idea to sew a little patch there to cover up the ugliness. Even though that little doggy is cute, I feel like it screams, "I'm trying to hide something!
Here is a picture of Macy's completed shorts and Eleanor's skirt. They will be competing against each other in the same division. I tried to figure out how to make it not that way, but if we had entered them into the adult category, I'm not sure they would have received a ribbon. At least knowing a child under nine made these will give the judges a lot of compassion!

How does your garden grow?

Here is our garden. Isn't it nice and green? Trent planted tomatoes and some peppers. What he didn't plant was those pumpkin plants. He also didn't plant this:
This looks like corn, but there's no ears growing so we don't really know what it is.
Even though we didn't plant the pumpkins, we have them none the less! This one is growing very well. I took this picture on a Monday.
I took this one on a Thursday. It's even bigger now and turning orange.
This is the first pumpkin that began to grow and is now ripe (I think). It didn't get very big compared to the one above it. We're not sure why. We're not very good in the gardening department.
Eleanor planted these in preschool. They are doing very well despite the fact the deer keep eating the tops of them!

Clothing (handsewn and smocked)-Constructed garment with Picture smocking

My latest creation is finished. I remade an old dress of mine into a jumper dress for Eleanor. Since the purple gingham was supposed to be for Macy but it's almost too short for her now, I made this a bit bigger to fit her and Eleanor. They pretty much wear the same size, Macy's just taller. Since they are both growing so much I had to use a bigger pattern than I have been to make the jumper and almost didn't have enough fabric. Just squeaked out enough!
I'm pleased with the smocking, although I had to rip out the B and move it over because I miscounted my pleats when I started and now I can't seem to get the black out of where the stitching was before. Hope they don't mind. Also I had used French seams, but the dress was way too big and I had to take it in. I ended up just turning under the seams and stitching them. I realize now I could have just left it the way it was and fixed it after the fair, but I knew I might never get to it. The seam finishes are nice, if not heirloom, but the dress is not really an heirloom type of item anyway.

Working on a baby outfit for a friend's soon to be born grandson. I'm hoping it's good enough to enter in the fair as well. Also knitting on some socks for Macy. Hope to finish those as well. Not getting enough sleep and I was pretty cranky today. Not good, so I need to sleep more and get done what I can and think about next year!

Claire's new skirt

It's been killing Claire that her two older sisters have been sewing for the fair and she can't. So I cut out a skirt from the same pattern and material we used for Eleanor's skirt and let her help me sew this one. She had fun stepping on the foot petal for me and pressing the back stitch button when needed. She even helped with the pressing! The skirt turned out very well and we'll enter it under my name since I really made it, but I'll let her keep the ribbon.

Coat, lined (under six years of age)

Another project finished. I started this coat on a whim for Kate since I figured I could probably finish it before the fair and it would be clean. If I can get Macy's coat clean, I'll enter it too under Coat, lined (7-12 years) but it's very dirty and I'm not hopeful. You can't enter it if it isn't clean and without stains (except for the hem of a wedding dress). It's a Butterick pattern and I made a small, just one size up from Newborn and it's still huge on her. I'm not sure if she'll grow enough to wear it this winter or not.

I felt like Macy's coat was rather plain and I had wanted to embellish it, but I never got a chance and was glad to just finish it in time for her to wear it this past winter. I had a lot of car time this summer with our various trips and so I tried my hand at some embroidery. I based my designs on a silk ribbon pattern I saw in a recent issue of Sew Beautiful.

The materials are all leftover from Macy's coat except for the buttons, so this was a real stash buster. I hate this wool! It's too thick for anything and very difficult to handle. I discovered that I could separate it into two thinner pieces and have started to do that to make Macy's American Doll a coat to match hers. If I can get that done and a few more pieces by next Thursday, I'll have something else to enter plus I'll have some of Macy's birthday/Christmas presents done! Time is running out though.

I just finished another smocked dress tonight and will try to take pictures tomorrow. Things are really coming along and my house isn't too messy yet! I feel good about this year even though I'm not sure I'll get the big ribbon. We have so many talented ladies and although I'm pleased with my work this year, every piece has given me enough trouble that I don't feel overly confident about any of them!