OC Fair Entry Results

The Orange County fair was fun as always this year! My sweetie and I went once just the two of us and again later with some friends. There was lots of delicious (yet oversized) food, cool animals, and of course, lots of fun art! Of course one of the first items of business was to stop by the Fiber Arts building to see how my entries did!

I was delighted on my first visit to see a 2nd place ribbon on my mermaid tail for the crocheted blanket category!

None of my other entries had any ribbons on them at the time, so I figured that was it. Then on our 2nd visit, I noticed a Staff Award on my knit Captain America dress! This is a discretionary award given to exhibits that the judges feel deserve recognition. What a nice surprise!

Another favorite from the fair this year was the Fur, Feathers, and Fiber exhibit, which of course included a display of different kinds of yarn and fabrics, and the plants and animals used to make them. My favorite example was this adorable French Angora bunny. Not only is it a sweet and cuddly pet, but when the bunny starts to shed you can take the loose fur and make soft and beautiful yarn! How perfect is that?

I hope everyone is enjoying the last couple weeks of summer and getting ready for some fun fall crafts!

-Assunta

Orange County Fair Entries

The Orange County Fair is just around the corner! I actually forgot about it until the day before the entries were due, oops! Luckily I had a few things ready:

1) I enjoyed watching my favorite yarn from the LA Yarn Crawl turn into this awesome rainbow shawl! Lace shawls are pretty common at the fair and I didn't win anything for the one I entered last year, but I thought I would give this one a try just because the yarn is so cool. The pattern for this shawl is available on Ravelry (not my design) and is called Mother of Dragons.

2) Next, because I am such a super-hero nerd I just had to make myself this Captain America sweater dress from the book Geek Knits! Normally, I struggle with modeling my projects so I asked a friend--who is a model herself and an excellent photographer--for some help with the posing and picture taking.

My last entry is my mermaid tail, which you've all seen and which has already had a couple of pattern sales on Etsy and Ravelry!

Because the OC fair gets such a huge volume of applicants, there is a juried selection process before entries are shown at the fair. Then there is yet another judging process to decide which things actually win prizes! I find out on Monday if any of my entries are selected for the fair. Wish me luck!

-Assunta 

Return of the Fat Baby Challenge!

About two years ago my mom and I found two adorable baby dolls at a sale. We decided to challenge ourselves to make cute outfits for them without showing each other the outfits until they were done. And so the Fat Baby Challenge began! If you want to see the original blog posts, they start here.

After the original challenge was over, we found more "fat babies" at Toys R' Us and discovered that they are actually called Lil' Cutesies. We bought a couple more, and this week I finally had an idea for an outfit for mine.

I've recently had a few requests from friends and coworkers for mermaid-tail blankets. I even promised myself one awhile back! I decided to test my pattern idea on my fat baby and here is the result!

I made the whole thing out of Red Heart Boutique: Unforgettable yarn in the color Candied and I love the way the rainbow of colors came through! I like this even better than my previous fat baby outfit, what do you think?

This doll will be available for sale at the annual St. Agatha Holiday Bazaar in a couple weeks (details to follow) and some day I will get around to writing the pattern and posting it on Etsy. I hope you like it!

Happy swimming!

-Assunta