My Wheaten Wrap won the Reserve Champion ribbon at the fair!

Wow, what a surprise that was – I’m very proud of it.  I loved this pattern, which is by Anne Hanson and knit with her yarn, Barenaked Wools Kent DK.  There is a Wheaten hat and fingerless mitts that I would love to make so they will all match.

I also came in fifth (out of six) in the Spinning Bee!  I’m just as proud of that.  I’m not a terrifically fast spinner (obviously) but it’s fun to have a little competition.  That day, though, it was so incredibly hot and humid, which made it difficult to handle the wool but also to sit there and be dripping with sweat.  I am absolutely NOT saying that is why I came in fifth.  I can guarantee I would have come in fifth anyway.  Here is a video that Paul took of the last minute (out of 30 minutes) and in case you can’t tell (not sure about the quality of the video) I’m the one in the blue shorts and baseball hat:

Altamont Fair Spinning Bee

Next to me is my spinning nemesis friend Lisa who is clearly much faster (how does she DO that????) and she same in second!

There was the usual fair eats too.  Ribbon chips, apple cider donuts, fried mushrooms, burrito, pretzels, and on the really hot/humid day we had slushies with a half-price refill.  VERY refreshing. (I think I swore I would never list the amount of food we ate again.  But I just did.  I think a previous year’s list was slightly more embarrassing.)

We saw the Belgian draft horses:

I just can’t get over their size.

And a cute baby cow:

This year the fair had a country store for local crafters and I put some of my knitted shawls up for sale:

(They didn’t sell, but that’s ok.)

Other News:

The Doodlebugs did some painting with their birthday present from Aunt Liz and Uncle Paul:

You may notice the abandoned chair.  These paints, which are a Crayola product, and are for CHILDREN, smelled ridiculously horrible.  Mr. Doodlebug couldn’t stand it.  I didn’t blame him.  We decided to only open one color at a time, and he came back for a second try, but it was still pretty awful.  Miss Ladybug hung in there and had fun.  She really, Really, REALLY wanted to paint.

We got ice cream:

The dinner plate dahlia’s started blooming:

And then the gladioli:

We went to the Park Playhouse and saw Pajama Game:

While we waited for it to start, I worked on a commissioned project, a sweater called Vitamin D, with the super-lovely-to-knit-with yarn, madelinetosh dk.

We also had our first pick-your-own day at our CSA farm:

We are starting to get a little overrun with veggies so I’m figuring out what to cook and what to freeze and what to can.

I canned some pickles:

That’s the news.  Hopefully, there will be more knitting to show you in the next post.  This blog, after all, is called Lizy Tish Knits.