The North Carolina State Fair is a big deal for me.
A really big deal.
I plan much of my summer around the crochet I will enter in the state fair competitions, and I spend many afternoons in the dog days of August out on my back deck in preparation.
In fact, I had already been keeping an online vigil waiting for the 2011 North Carolina Premium Book and was delighted when I checked in this morning and found that the premium book with all of its categories was finally published.
After a quick look, I can see that the categories have been shaken up a bit. Gone is Department Y, section 10331 for afghans made from variegated yarn, but a category for lap afghans/prayer shawls has been added. Additionally, the baby afghan category has been expanded to include a one-color category, and a two or more color category.
I will have to read through the premium book carefully to figure out how I can participate as fully as possible, and now that the state fair season is officially upon me, I decided to get my 2010 North Carolina State Fair pictures uploaded to my flickr account and cleared off my SD card before the 2011 North Carolina State Fair opened.
When I attend the fair, the first thing I do is take a picture of is my parking space number. After one year where I spent almost as much time looking for my car as I did looking at things at the fair, I decided to document my parking space for easy reference:
Once inside the fairgrounds, my first stop is an exhibit area known as “Village of Yesteryear” which has a variety of artisans displaying the traditional crafts they make.
One of my perennial favorites is the braided rugs:
Another that captivated me were these Ukrainian Eggs courtesy of Kit Lennon:
From the Village of Yesteryear, I traverse the fairgrounds to the Education Building where many of the handcrafts are displayed. This past year, my afghan did not place, but my psychedelic circle jacket did well:
And while my afghan did not place, there was plenty to see. These two floral motif afghans did well:
as did this sampler afghan:
and this crocheted version of a traditional log cabin quilting pattern:
Hungry and in need of both celebration and commiseration, I headed back to the midway and the annual array of deep-fried foods:
One of the 2010 North Carolina State Fair food oddities was this Krispy Kreme burger:
I, however, held out for my usual fair of funnel cakes:
In the next week, I will look over this year’s competition categories for the 2011 State Fair, and begin the work of setting my crochet schedule for the next
