Fiber Arts Friday: County Fair, 2024

As mentioned in my Tour de Fleece, Hommes wrap-up, these two skeins were entered into our local county fair.

On the left is Tibetan Mastiff (2 3/8 oz of 2-ply) and the right is Huacaya Alpaca + Bamboo (~4 oz of 2-ply). Both were primarily spun during the most recent Tour de Fleece.

I don't have great expectations for either yarn... 

• The Huacaya Alpaca + Bamboo has bits that are over-spun and not resolved during plying.  But it is a really soft and consistent yarn, otherwise.
• The Tibetan Mastiff is a much better yarn.  It is well-balanced and generally an even gauge, but not entirely.

So we shall see what the judges think...

I also had one entry in Preserved Foods for Blueberry Curd.  This idea blew my mind.  I'm so excited to learn that many fruits can be made into a curd... not just Lemon, which I absolutely love.

While we bought the blueberries, the eggs were produced by our hens.  :-)

The grand champion in the spinning+weaving category was a 3-ply yarn that was absolutely exquisite.

I always (!) love going to the Fair, and especially looking at the quilts.  I'm certain that I've mentioned this before.... we have some truly amazing quilters in my county.  :-D

We looked at all of the open exhibits and the 4H exhibits.  We watched some market lamb showmanship.  Walked through the barn to see some of the sheep and pigs.  Ate some amazing Brisket+Mac-n-Cheese.

I hope you have the opportunity to visit your local county or state fair.  It's always a fun time, in my opinion.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

Fiber Arts Friday: County Fair, 2022

It's County Fair time again.  :-)

Upon looking at the Hand Spinning and Weaving Department Premium List when it became available in early June (~6/6/22) I was surprised to realize that I did not have any yarn completed since the specified date (8/1/21).  However, it does make sense given the move and focus on the large SOS Sweater.

Then, as I started to review the premium lists for other departments and thinking about where I was on projects, I realized that I might be able to field a decent entry.

So I have three photos:

Thanks to the Tour de Fleece, Hommes and Femme, and some warmup spinning, I finished two yarn entries.... Tibetan Mastiff (Ramen) and Dorset Horn (SE2SE) to go with one Handspun+Handknit Hat.

And some last minute Strawberry Jam.

Of all of these things, only the Hat was complete between August 1, 2021 and June 6, 2022.  Everything was dropped off last week.  Judging was on Wednesday and the Fair was open Friday thru Tuesday.

I went over the weekend to see the exhibits.  There were large entries in both the Spinning/Weaving and Needlework departments... especially Needlework was much larger than in recent years.

I'm happy to report that each of my yarns received second place and were displayed on the wall with the other beautiful yarns.

    

None of my other entries received ribbons, but it was quite fun to see my photos displayed with the other entries.

  

As well as my hat and jam on the shelf displays.

 

The Best in Spinning was this remarkable Handspun-Handknit Sweater.  This did not look like handspun yarn at all.

Some of the other entries....

  

  

  

Wilma and I picked up our entries on Wednesday.  She was a very good girl while waiting in line... and very excited when we picked up the fiber projects.  :-)

The comments received mostly make sense.

For the yarn:  The majority of points lost were for not following instructions.... while I did state the intended project for the yarns, I neglected to include the intended technique... knit, crochet, weaving.  oy.

The canned goods can only come from pre-approved recipes.  This wasn't clear to me in the Premium List prior to entry.  In going back to read it again, it's still not clear to me.... Although I now have the list of approved sources, so I will take a look and then decide if I want to try again.

There were no notes on the photographs, which was disappointing.

Overall it was a good fair for me and the fibery-stitching competitions are definitely my favorite.  I have no doubt that I will continue to compete.  :-)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday!!

In the Kitchen: Strawberry Jam

Hubba has been asking for Strawberry Jam for years... and by years, I mean YEARS!

I thought it might not happen again since we were not able to find any fresh strawberries for the weekend I had set aside for making jam.  Then he found them at CostCo...

So I cleared last weekend, and with Hubba's help, we put up 3 flats of fresh Strawberry Jam.

Two days.  Two recipes.  Fifty 1/2-pint jars.

This makes me very happy.

Peaches, 2016

Peach Pickup Day was a couple of weeks ago.

As I've mentioned before, our neighbor sells peaches as part of a fund raiser for women's college scholarships... something I feel very strongly about.

There were 2 Lug Boxes or 36 lbs of very delicious and juicy peaches.  This is about all I can get done in one weekend.

We have plenty of jam from last year and are using more frozen. So I only made one batch of butter, one batch of a new-to-me savory peach chutney, and I froze everything else.

These will be so delicious in January.

Peachy Weekend

This has become a tradition.  Our neighbor sells Palisade Peaches as part of a college scholarship fundraiser for women and I make jammy goodness.  :-)

We bought two lug boxes, 36 lbs this year.

I froze some, made one batch of butter and the rest went into jam.

I bought the wrong kind of pectin, so the darker jars were boiled longer and are therefore a thick jam.  The lighter colored jars were not boiled as long and thus more of a peach sauce.  The darkest jars are the peach butter.

We sure do love our Colorado Peaches.  :-)

Putting Up Pears

My neighbor's pear tree was prolific this year.

She offered me some a couple of weeks ago.  To which, I excitedly accepted, thinking there might be enough for a small batch of butter.  But by the end of the afternoon, she and the kids had picked 6 grocery sacks and brought them over.

I'm really glad that we kept our peach boxes, as they were just enough to hold the bounty of pears.

I hadn't put up pears before, but they need to be picked while still firm and then allowed to ripen on the counter.  So these guys rested on the kitchen counter for a week.

I processed about 1/3 of them last weekend, as the remainder were still too hard to do anything with.

But after another week on the counter, most had crossed over to too ripe.  :-(

These pears were pretty small, so the yield was also quite small for the amount of work involved.  However, I did make one small batch each of butter and jam.  They are delicious.

I'll be getting started on our apples later today.  What a wonderful harvest season we're having this year.  :-)

Putting Up Peaches, 2014

We picked up our peaches on Friday afternoon.

My Momma came over to help.

We made jam, pickles and froze some.

36 pounds pounds of peaches put up for the winter.  :-)

Cherries

Many Thanks to my friend's bountiful Montmorency Cherry Trees.

They are delicious.

Putting Up Peaches: 2013

Our neighbor participates in a fund raiser every year that involves Palisade Peaches.  The peaches that come from Colorado's Western Slope are so delicious.  Really, the best, in my opinion.  The program she works with provides college scholarships to women which we are very happy to support.

Back in February, Hubba placed our order.  She wasn't even taking orders yet, but Hubba did not want to miss out.  He committed us to three Lug Boxes... one more than last year.... at 18 pounds each, I was faced with putting up 54 pounds of peaches before they got too ripe.

We went over on the ATV and strapped the boxes to the front to get them home last Friday.  A few were consumed before we even got to the door and I've been processing peaches in most of my spare time ever since.

I decided to not use spices in the butter this year.  Last year's peach butter didn't taste much different from the apple butter.  So this year's was made with only peaches, water and sugar, no spices.  It's yummy.

The jam I make uses honey instead of sugar and is soooo delicious.  I thought about entering it in the county fair this year, but missed the deadline by a couple of weeks.  Note made for next year... perhaps this is Blue Ribbon Jam?  ;-)

My dad's wife has fond memories of Pickled Peaches from her childhood, so I thought I'd give those a try... All I can say is, "How did I not know these were so delicious?"  I made two batches.

The last batch of peaches were made into Peachsauce.  Since we like Applesauce so much we thought it might be fun to do the same thing with peaches.  I used a Peach Butter recipe, with a little less sugar and did not cook it as long.

So again, with 50% more peaches than last year, I still did not have enough for freezing or a simple hot pack.  I guess we'll be having 4 Lug Boxes next year.  ;-)