Twisp of Fate

I participated in the Twisp Saturday Market again the last 2 weeks.  I got up there extra early the Labor Day weekend, as this is easily the biggest market of the year, in terms of numbers of participants and (hopefully) shoppers.  Our valley has a robust tourist economy and Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer season.

Well, rain was forecast, which was accurate, unfortunately!  It turned into a soggy affair.  Some vendors folded shop and simply left early.  Hardy souls squelched by with rain jackets and umbrellas.  I managed to get most of my display, plus myself, under the cover of my large patio umbrella:

and felt lucky to sell 3 rugs over the course of the morning.

Last weekend was a different story, weather-wise.  We are having clear blue skies and temperatures in the 80’s.  I brought one of my spinning wheels up and sat spinning some wool that my sister sent me from California.  This was fun and productive for me, and seemed to be interesting to a lot of the passers-by.

I also submitted some items last week for judging at the Okanogan County Fair.  First time I have entered a county fair in my life.  We went over to Omak on Sunday afternoon to look around the fair exhibits and the animal barns, and pick up my entries at the end of the day.

Judging is done using a modified Danish System, in which entries are evaluated against a set of standards and not against the other entries in the same division and class.  At this fair they also place exhibitors into age groups, which I think is what makes it a “modified” Danish System.  The awards are Blue (excellent, exceeds standard), Red (good, meets expected standard), White (fair, falls below expected standard) or no award if the entry is disqualified for some reason.  They also may award Grand Champion and Reserve Champion (sort of like first and second place amongst all the blue ribbons in the class).  But they don’t necessarily award these and I haven’t yet figured out what the circumstances are for this to happen – it isn’t explained in the Fair entry book.

I entered two knitted pieces in the Knitting class under the Home Economics – Sewing & Needlework department.  My Einstein Coat, which I completed last fall (pre-blog) got a blue ribbon and Grand Champion award.  Holy cow!  This pattern is found in Sally Melville’s book The Knit Stitch.  I used a discontinued Noro yarn, wool/silk/alpaca, picked up on sale somewhere a couple of years back.

Einstein Coat

My “Bohus Forest Darkness” sweater, the knitting of which was chronicled on this blog earlier in the year, received a blue ribbon.  I find it ironic that this one wasn’t the G.C., since I know it required much more skill, experience and patience to knit than the coat.  The comment form said “Good looking sweater – good work – but looks like dog or cat hair on it.  Roller (sticky) would clean it off.”  Excuse me?  I carefully de-pilled and cleaned this sweater before entering it and I sure don’t see any cat hair on it.  I did tell them it was an angora blend yarn on the entry form – Rick thinks someone thought the angora halo was cat hair.  Who knows.

Over in the Arts & Crafts department, I entered a skein of handspun yarn in the Spinning class, and one of my overshot table mats and a rag rug in the Weaving class.  I got a blue ribbon and Reserve Champion award for my handspun (spun last fall from a dyed Corriedale pencil roving I bought from Crown Mountain Farms in Yelm, WA):

I also got a blue ribbon for my table runner and a red ribbon on the rug – there was no comment form so I am not sure why but, oh well.

We also managed to catch the last 2 horse races of the day, the final one being the “Pony Express” race, which a friend here in the Methow had told me about last week.  There were 4 teams with one rider and 3 horses each.  And this is done bareback, too!  They have to change horses after each lap around the track, and if they don’t make the transition they are disqualified.  One guy was in this unfortunate position, he just didn’t manage to get on the second horse and it wound up making the lap without him.  They seemed like pretty high-strung horses, too.