Surviving Hilary and an Earthquake, and Quilting

SO, we are being deluged by Hurricane Hilary the now Tropical Storm,  a first for California in over 100 years.. After meeting our son and grandsons at the park and watching our daughter in law play soccer this morning (she's playing goalie), it began to rain as we left, and has been raining ever since, pretty steadily. I spent most of the morning thereafter in the sewing room getting a quilt top sandwiched.  I was still in the sewing room when we had a 5.1 earthquake strike Ojai, 20+ miles away.  It was quite a ride during the quake and for many aftershocks thereafter.  Fortunately there was no significant damage to relate. 

I picked up my Fair entries early in the week an gathered up all the ribbons.  There were judge's comments on the back of each tag, and pretty much each one indicated more quilting was recommended.  I suppose I'll have to use that as my guide to win a blue ribbon again at the Fair! I did get awarded 4 second place, a third, and two honorable mentions.  

Quite a pile to bring home.  I'll cash my $7.00 prize check sometime, as the cashier was long closed by the time I went to the Fairgrounds after work.

Grandson Hunter's quilt saw some action on Saturday while hubby Grant was away. I got all the blocks assembled.  

They are quite busy and it seemed wise to suggest a narrow sashing to Hunter's mommy.  He chose a dark green, from my suggestions.  I'll need to purchase that at the fabric store. 

Sunset last night was amazing.  I caught the sliver moon in another pic. 

Fair Entries and a few Pics

I finished all my entries for the Ventura County Fair and took them down to the Fairgrounds on Thursday after work.  Due to the short time-frame between the X-Games and the Fair opening date, there were still a lot of workers trying to get rides set up, long after 5 pm. Many food trailers and other concessions were waiting, too. The Fair opens on August 2nd.

Here's the DMC Floral Bouquet stitch finished in the hoop with wrapped ribbon.  I found the iridescent blue ribbon at Michael's--it matched the blue flosses perfectly.  I added my initials, but then needed to add another floral spray on the lower left for balance. It didn't take too long to stitch and I think it blends well.  After trimming away the excess Aida to about 1-1/2"and using long stitches in the remainder to gather it up, the back was covered with a piece of white wool felt I hand stitched on.  The pink ribbon also bought at Michael's matched well as a hanging loop.  The Strawberries stitch in the prestretched Aida square got felt on the back too, but no additional hanger. 

There was very little activity at the Home Arts building, sadly. The volunteer who was helping me said that entries were very thin this year--likely due to the online-entry only requirement this year.  I had spent a lot of time choosing categories for my items and the gal helping me was most thankful and didn't make any changes to my selections.  I had to laugh that after spending extra time to add a label to each of the six quilts I put in, she covered over my name on each one with a piece of blue painter's tape!  😆

Although Picasa is no longer available to add photos too, I do still have access to pics I've downloaded to the computer.  Here's a pic of me with our newest grandson, shortly after he came home from the hospital in June.  His quilt is behind him. Bryce has grown very well since then.  He got his father and grandfather's blue eyes, which makes him different from his brother and older cousins' hazel/brown ones! I took care of him at a local pool outing with big brother and Mama last week.  He was very squirmy and didn't want to sleep  :)

I will have to figure out how to reduce the photo file size or will run out of room very quickly and have to pay for storage!  

Ventura County Fair 2022

Hi, I'm still here, just haven't had much to blog about sewing-wise, as I haven't turned on my machine in awhile. Hubby and I chose the last concert night to attend our local Fair.  Parking was awful as usual but I was smart and headed for the furthest rows, where the earlier attendees might have already exited, and was rewarded by a nice, close slot.  Hubby does not walk distances very well, due to chronic back issues, so we stopped frequently so he could sit down for a few minutes.  We headed to the Home Arts building after eating some fish tacos for dinner. I went inside while Grant enjoyed a beer.

It was a pretty sad showing overall for Home Arts for the first Fair after the pandemic, which I attribute mostly to the change in submitting entries to ONLY online, but lots of guild members won ribbons.  

Lots of variety.  As usual, the lighting in this building is terrible, and I wish they had hung more quilts from the ceiling where you could see the entire quilt. 

There was a good variety to enjoy, both modern and traditional.  

Judy got ribbons for all her entries.  She hand quilts most of her quilts. 

I like this pretty bee quilt. Love the pollen on the bee's leg :)

Cute embroidered pillow and knitting.

Christmas beauties.  Love the big star and cardinal quilt, and the cabin in the woods with Santa.

Chris is another guild member who did well.  First on this small geometric...

..and on a really large quilt.  We had a class for this a couple of years ago and mine remains unfinished.  I really like Chris's setting. 

More beachy items in a booth. The seagulls in the quilt on the floor are cute. 

There was plenty of cross-stitch and embroidery too. This is so pretty and obviously took many hours of needle and thread time. 

The Jar embroidery quilt caught my eye, as I had entered a quilt with the top left embroidery design a few years ago!

Cute Easter themed stitcheries. 

Loved the colors in this sweet heart wallhanging.

We had a little time to wander around before the concert.  The usual beautiful landscaping and garden and animal exhibits were thin and the whole place looked bare.  Hope next year is better.  We made our way to the Grandstand for the concert as the sun was setting. 

I captured not one, but TWO different sunflares in the clouds.  

The second was faint, but still visible. 

We were far away from the top fans at the foot of the concert stage, but had a great view on the large screen.  The sunset seemed to last forever. 

Wider scene showing the crowd.  Lots of great music and we enjoyed the 1 hour show, free with Fair Entry.  The rodeo took over the Grandstand Arena for the rest of the Fair Days. 

We enjoyed our time but missed a lot of our favorite vendors and exhibits that were absent.  Hopefully next year's Fair will be further recovered and more popular than ever.  I will definitely enter something next year!

Art and More from the County Fair

Mom and I spent more time in the Home Arts building looking at the amateur fine arts category, including drawing and painting of all types.  We had a few favorites, scratched our heads at some ribbon winners, but were mostly impressed.  

I liked  this very fine colored pencil portrait.  Many hours dedicated to this one, for certain.

I liked this one too, of a ballet stretch. 

Another very well executed drawing that received Best of Show. 

A fun caricature self-portrait also won best of show.  Clever use of an old clipboard.  I took cartooning at our local college when I was in high school--still have some of my work around here somewhere.  

Neither Mom nor I was familiar with this art medium, but thought it a very clever portrait.

I was fond of this watercolor, all the rich autumn colors. 

A chilling rendering of the hills and sky during the Thomas Fire in December 2017, from midtown of the city.

Another fine watercolor of a leafless tree.  So much energy in the painting, I thought.  

I then took Mom over to the Youth Arts building to show her an amazing installation of an art form I had never heard of, Tapigami.  

Everything displayed here is made from masking tape!  It was a huge display, you had to stand back to see "VENTURA" spelled out. 

All kinds of towers, leaves, animals, flowers and shapes made with tape.

The creator of this inexpensive art form has written a couple of instructional books.  You can google Tapigami for more amazing installations. 

After a lunch of Fish Tacos from a favorite local vendor, we made our way to the Floriculture building, which had a dearth of the normal large commercial displays with hundreds of plants, water features, bridges, etc for yards.  While we missed them, there were plenty of amateur efforts.  

The editor in me cringed at the unnecessary apostrophe in Plants, but was happy to see someone else added the second "o" in too to correct it!  I posted about this on Instagram and found it funny that there is a hashtag #pluralnotpossessive :)

Here's a rendering in miniature of the Fairgrounds that was created by County Jail system juveniles who are being taught landscaping skills, apparently.  Pretty unique!

One more quilt I forgot to share, a fun one.

Wall-E!

County Fair Visit--Home Arts

The annual County Fair is over, but I wanted to share some photos from the visit my Mom and I made--we spent a lot more time at the Home Arts building than my husband wanted to when he and I went :)

I liked this Jack's Chain quilt and the Eiffel Tower stained glass piece.  The metalwork butterfly was pretty, too. 

Mom was getting a closer look at my quilt in that booth, and I don't know what else!

We both laughed at the chubby mermaid sculpture that was in the sea themed booth.  

A fellow guild member made the amazing quilt--can't remember the pattern designer at the moment.

This entry in the Table Setting contest was cute, but I noted a creepy item on the menu...

A "C" needed to be added to the appetizer description to avoid cannibalism of a religious sect :)

A beautiful Dear Jane quilt. 

Another traditional favorite--Seven Sisters.

A Lone Star quilt has been on my "Must Make" list for many years.

I loved this hodge-podge quilt made from all the leftover blocks and "singles" that never became a quilt.  It won a special Fair award. 

This animal themed booth had lots of variety.  I liked the stuffed Yak bookended by Amigurumi critters.   Cinderella's carriage was pretty impressive on the lower left.

Another guild member's Mt Hood quilt by Violet Craft.  I have yet to finish my version, of which I have one section done!  Judy hand quilts all her work.

Beautiful piecing on this purple quilt. 

I liked this Crooked House quilt too, it was hung above my ModZ baby quilt. 

I have more photos I'll share in another post.