theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I know it sounds cheesy, but the Minnesota State Fair is quite a big deal to many Twin Cities knitters.  I have been entering stuff since the mid-80’s. 

There are many different categories for hand knitted articles.  They define plain knitting as stockinette and garter stitch (this is new this year — garter st used to compete against textured knitting); texture knitting is cabled, entrelac and lace; color pattern is fair isle or Norwegian; intarsia is intarsia; “limited use” means that only a portion of the garment uses color or texture.  They have separate categories for hats, socks, mittens, gloves, afghans, scarves, jacket/outer wear, etc.  So, even though you can only enter one item per category, there are many possibilities.  The prizes are VERY nominal (embarrassing really).

The judges give you a score sheet with point totals on different knitting elements.  They award points based on the quality of the knitting, the difficulty of the project and embellishments, if appropriate (i.e., buttons — they have a thing about buttons).   Sometimes they write in comments about why they scored your knitting the way they did.  Over the years I have learned quite a bit about what they were looking for — they tend to favor the traditional and place a lot of emphasis on finishing. 

It takes ~98-99 points to get a blue ribbon in a given category.  After all the ribbons are awarded they compare the blue ribbon winners and award the sweepstakes.  There is a separate sweepstakes for afghans. 

Mindful Knitting

Sally has mentioned “mindful knitting” before.  State fair competition is where I got my first hint of mindful knitting.  I had always just blindly followed the pattern, figuring it was the gospel from which you could not deviate.  When the judges would mark off points and describe what I did “wrong” I was shocked: I hadn’t done anything wrong, I had followed the pattern exactly as written!!  I didn’t understand how I could get points taken off for following the directions.  It slowly started to dawn on me – they didn’t care about the pattern, but how well the garment was executed — I told you I was a bit slow on the uptake!  I needed to think the project through ahead of time, anticipate the finishing and make sure I would have the best result.  It really made me think about my knitting, work on my finishing technique, and ultimately I improved my knitting quite a bit. 

The first time I won the sweepstakes was in 1986 for a Penny Straker shetland lace cardigan — to me it felt like winning Olympic gold.   Here are close ups of the neckline and the bottom:

A crocheted buttonband!  These are antique buttons that I got from my husband’s great aunt — I also used them on my Henry the VIII cardigan.  Unfortunately, this sweater has not fit me in years!

Since then, I have won ribbons every year and several more sweepstakes along the way.  It is fun to walk through the Creative Activities building and try to find your stuff and see how well you did.  It makes going to the fair much more fun and now is kind of a ritual.  I go to the fair on the first day and wait outside the Creative Activities door at 9am sharp to be one of the first in — I always run into other obsessed knitters, and we enjoy looking at the displays together.  It represents the culmination of a year’s worth of knitting.  They also have tons of other fabulous things to look at (amazing quilts, sewing, woodwork, etc.).

The icing on the cake is going to the September Knitters Guild meeting.  We bring our entries and read the judges’ comments — then we get to look at the items up close and talk to each other about our projects. 

This Year’s Entries — drum roll, please!  You will recognize most of the items if you have been reading this blog (please excuse some of the pictures — it’s hard to photograph full sweaters).

The buttons STILL need to be sewn onto Sunrise!  I will do that tomorrow and then take the stuff in on Monday.  Ballerina has to wait until next year — I already have entries in the two categories it could go into (either plain knitting – cardigan, or jacket).  It’s kind of nice to have something ready for 2007.

Anyway, there you have it.   I won’t know how I did until 9am on Thursday, August 24th….but who cares, right?