What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

It has been a crazy week, with multiple cooking contests and lots of entries to find in the Expo building. Today, if you can tolerate the tooting of my own horn, I’ll show you a few more ribbons in other divisions. In Senior Crafts, this holiday theme table topper won second place in Holiday Decorations. I love this sentiment! It is perfect for the holiday season. Used a baking print for the wide border.

In Senior Crafts Embroidered Item Hand or Machine, this set of hot pads with the chicken fabrics and the “Cluck It” saying won first place ...

The NC Mountain State Fair this year has been as much fun as ever. I worked the quilt take-in table for a shift on Labor Day, then back to the Expo building on Wednesday to work as a judge for the Professional Crafts Division. Both days were fun, and so inspirational to see the wonderful projects and quilts coming through. Back to the fair on Friday evening for the first cooking competition, I had a chance to look around the exhibits to see how my entries fared. I was so excited to see Koi Pond with a First Place ribbon ...

It is less than three weeks from the turn-in day for entries to the Mountain State Fair, and I am in the process of getting it all together. This year, the turn in day is September 1, the earliest it can possibly be. The first thing I did was to register online for all the categories I entered in previous years. I may not actually have an entry for everything, but it is far easier to turn in an unused entry tag rather than try to add an entry. I printed out the entry list, and started looking around for ...

Today will be a quiet day, enjoying the cooler air and watching some of the local wildlife if they stop by again. This pretty doe and her fawn came by earlier in the week to munch on the plants and enjoy a late afternoon meal.

They do like to eat a few of the hosta seeds. I don’t really mind, I have a lot of hostas.

One morning, I took my coffee to the veranda to find this web had been put up overnight. As interesting as it is, with the sunlight on the dew clinging to the strands ...

This week has been more fun at the fair in the evenings, with time to sew during the day. Monday evening was the pork competition, and the emphasis was on international cuisine. The contest was called PassPork to Flavor, which I thought was clever. So, knowing how much I like Japanese food, I went with Asian Pork Lettuce Wraps, using ground pork. Placing the filling in a pretty bowl, I layered lettuce leaves alongside sprinkled with green onions.

The judges awarded my dish Third Place. Afterwards, they remarked on how nice the presentation was, with little bits of green onion ...

It is always interesting to see what wins a ribbon and what doesn’t. I have personally experienced this sometimes baffling phenomenon. Sometimes a quilt will do really well in one competition, and not even place in another. I hear my friends complain about this from time to time, wondering why an award winner in one show doesn’t even merit an honorable mention in another. The answer is, it depends on what else is entered. Prime examples of this came in the crafts category this year at the fair for some of my entries. I entered these machine quilted ...

This crazy week is over, and I will be spending all day in my chair watching football today. It was a full week, but lots of fun, mostly centering around the Mountain State Fair. Wednesday was the big day, with the morning taken up with judging for the crafts division, which was really fun and interesting. We did our category of Professional Crafts with a team of 5. Two of us were judges, one to pin the ribbons on, and two to carry the class entries to us at the judging table and back again. The system worked efficiently, and ...

It is going to be a very busy week, and I hit the ground running yesterday with the turn-in for the Mountain State Fair competitions. My final count is 22 items submitted – 5 in Photography, 4 in Quilting, 7 in Amateur Crafts, 6 in Senior Crafts. I packed it up Monday morning, and took it over to the fair. I got my entries sorted into categories and did one category at a time. The proper tag goes on each one, and I bring my entry sheet with me to be sure I do it right. I put the tag on ...

Tuesday night was the third cooking contest, this time with eggs. The rules specified a frittata, so I decided to make mine Mediterranean. It has Italian sausage, spinach, onion, garlic, mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes. Tomatoes often add too much water to a recipe, so I had the idea of cutting cherry tomatoes in half and placing them cut side up on the top of the frittata. This worked well when I tested the idea on a quiche a month ago, so I went with it.

It did not place in the competition, but we ate almost half of it ...

Today, I will share my third place winning recipe for the Tricolor Tomato Tian. A tian is a French peasant dish consisting of sliced vegetables, overlapped in an earthenware dish, then baked. The vegetables are meant to be the stars of the dish, so no sauces or cheese are added. I thought a tomato tian would be a good entry, with some onion and garlic for flavor. The dish is baked at a high heat for a long time to reduce the water in the tomatoes.

Starting out, the assembly of the elements is so colorful! When I tested the ...

Rain fell off and on last week, and one drizzly morning these boys came by for a visit. Both males, they strutted around and loudly gobble-gobbled. I threw some sunflower seed hearts out for them.

They were happy as clams to do a bit of hunt and peck.

The goldfinches and a woodpecker got their share in the feeder. There is a titmouse on the back side as well.

The garden is winding down, but the squashes refuse to fully ripen. I’ve moved the leaves around to get more sunlight to them, and I am still waiting. The largest ...

August is the time to get out the glue gun and do some crafting for the fair. This division of the exhibits has been thin in participants since covid shut down the fair in 2020. In 2021, there were so few entries, practically every entry got a ribbon. In 2022, it was a bit better, but still not as many entries as there is space to display them, so it looked sparse. I plan to do my part this year to help this division have more items to display, entering 10 categories. I hope more competitors will do the same ...

More surprises were in store as I went back to the fair again on Friday and Saturday. This little beaded Christmas ornament was one of those last minute ideas that I put together the day before the entry turn-in day. It is difficult to see, as most of the beads are clear. It has a line of beads on a straight wire to three green ones, then another wire makes a swirl around the central line. I was gobsmacked to see a third place ribbon on it in the Christmas Ornaments category in Crafts.

Between turning in my dishes for ...

It has been a great time at the fair this year so far. I’ve been to the fair twice now, both times to find entries in the competitions, and to compete in two cooking contests. Those of you who are in my Friends of From My Carolina Home facebook group, and who follow me on Instagram, know my big news, as I was just too excited to wait. The Quilted Jacket we all worked on with our quilt along won first place in quilted clothing, and Best in Show!!!

Then the matching purse and accessories also won first place ...

It’s been a busy week, beginning last weekend with the Apple Festival. I went to an orchard on Saturday, hoping to get some more great shots for the Agriculture category for the fair. I did get a couple that might work for next year’s competition. These are just a few of the varieties of apples this one had. Leading off, Jonogolds.

These are Pink Ladies. I was trying to get an artsy shot, with the ones farthest away a bit blurred.

These are Honey Crisps. The blurred background worked a bit better here.

Some of the trees on ...

It is Apple Festival weekend, the start of the fall season for me. Although all is still green outside, my heart is ready for colorful leaves, pumpkins, football games, wearing sweaters on cool days, and warm comfort food. This week I was delighted with the cool mornings, and amazingly was able to capture a visiting hummingbird making the rounds of my scraggly verbena and petunias. Lovely, isn’t she?

She stayed long enough for me to get several photos, most came out blurry but this one was clear enough to see her well enough.

The garden continues to give me ...