Meet me at the fair.......

Edited to add: Taking a basket class today at the LQS...my first one....hope to post photos and give a report tomorrow!

Yesterday we went to the State Fair. We woke up to a very "iffy" weather report and nearly postponed our visit until later in the week. However, we decided to go and did not have bad weather and had a very good time. With it being a bit overcast, it actually stayed a bit cooler than it would have been otherwise.

Our first stop was the horse arena to see some of the events there. Next thing I knew, a familiar person sat on the bench in front of us in the bleachers. It was Quilting Nana, a blogger and a personal friend of mine and a member of our quilt guild. I said hello and when she turned around to see who was talking to her and her husband, she was very surprised to see it was me and my husband. What was funnier was that she was wearing a shirt that I also have AND I nearly wore the same one to the fair. Here is a photo of the two of us there (I'm in the pink). Afterwards, we also ran into another gal from our quilting guild and her husband, but I didn't get a photo of me with her....DUH.I will post some fun photos of the animals at the fair as well as some other 4-H photos in another post, but for now, here are a few of quilts (with comments, where necessary). The first photo shows an area of one of the exhibit buildings that housed the arts and crafts entries.....MANY beautiful things were there. (Click to enlarge and see more detail.)I truly wish you could see this next quilt in person. PLEASE be certain to click on it to see it in greater detail. It is made by Lucy (no blog), a member of our guild. She has only been quilting about 4 years.....but is excellent. She has already had a quilt (last year) selected to be shown in the Paducah show. She dyes most of her fabrics and does her own quilting on a regular home sewing machine (although she is buying a long-arm soon). I can only imagine the work she will do with a long-arm!!! This quilt won a blue ribbon...it is done with hand-dyed fabrics and is hand appliqued and machine quilted on her own sewing machine. It is truly a work of art. The last photo today (below this one) is another one of her masterpieces.For this beautiful shore bird wall-hanging, Lucy first obtained permission from the renowned photographer who took the original photograph. (It was Kevin Fleming.) He gave his permission and she reproduced his photo with wonderful detail in fabric. She quilted it (again on her home machine) using thread that matched all the fabrics. (You can see that better if you click on the photo.) Not only did this win a blue ribbon, but it won the overall Judges' Award for excellence. This photo in NO way does the piece justice, but I can assure you this gal is a super-talented fabric artist!