A New Adventure…..

Today I am off on a new adventure to help judge the quilts for the Georgia National Fair!!!

I am super excited and pretty nervous too!!

They use a checksheet scoring which should make it a bit easier and, hopefully, after the first 10 or so quilts, I will feel more comfortable with it!!

I have a long history with fairs!!

In Abilene, Texas (where I grew up), my favorite part of fall was the West Texas Fair. We would be released from school early on the first Tuesday of the fair and given free tickets so that we could attend!!

It was such fun to walk thru all of the pavillions, pick up free goodies from the advertisers, stroll thru the homemaking tent where the crafts and bake goods were housed, and then finally visit the barns. My Dad LOVED the barns so we spent an inordinate amount of time there….but it was fun to smell the farm fragrances and see the beautiful animals.

And then there were the rides!!! It is sad how much faith we put into rides that were hastily built and seldom repaired, but it is fun to remember the screams of joy as we whirled thru the air. Since I was an only child, Mom and Dad would often let me bring a friend, but if I was there by myself, I could always count on my Dad to climb on the ride with me!!

Back in 1971, I knitted a pair of houseshoes for a Girl Scout project and entered them in the fair. Naturally, my Mom kept all of the documentation and apparently, I won a Second Place ribbon…..

When my Mom returned to quilting in 1976, she immediately started winning ribbons at the West Texas Fair and she was SO proud of them.

In later years, she even helped to judge the entries…I guess that nut didn’t fall far from the tree!!

Her last entry in the fair was a quilt that she and I had made together…..

She had hand appliqued all of the amazing flower blocks and was just going to put some borders on it and call it done. I asked her if I could finish up the quilt and she happily acquiesced!!

She was SOOO excited that it won first place that year in the Applique division and I even have the ribbon that I purloined from her house…..

So Fairs seem to run in my blood.

I’ll let you know how this weekend turns out!!!