Our State Fair opened today and this year I entered eight items!

Last year, I won one blue ribbon and two reds and earned enough money to pay for our dinner.*  So I’ve decided that this is going to be my goal for every year – pay for our state fair trip with my state fair award money.

Here’s what I entered.

• back row: string of Christmas tree lights (N17 – ornament)
• middle row: Mark’s doll (N1 – doll), doll dress (C-69 – doll clothes), Mark’s color book (N5 – toy or game, other than doll or stuffed animal), the library tote (A46 – quilted tote)
• front row – Ellie’s Easter dress (C48 – dress, dressy, daytime), my introvert recovery picnic quilt (A2 – quilt, machine pieced, machine quilted) (once I get it back, I’ll take pictures of it and do a proper blog post for it), Ellie’s 4th birthday dress (C52 – dress, general wear)

So, if you’re going to the Maryland State Fair, make sure to go to the most interesting part of the fair (Home Arts, of course) and look for the dresses (all 3) in the “Clothing” section, the quilt and tote in the “Quilting” section, and the doll, color book, and Christmas lights in the “Crafts and Decorative Arts” section.

We won’t get there until Sunday afternoon so I’ll have to wait that long to see if I won a blue ribbon for my tote bag. When I was dropping off all my things on Monday, I saw another tote bag that certainly could contend with mine on strength of quilting and construction (although, I thought the fabric choices were ugly. Ha!) So I’m not quite as cocky confident as I was before but I’m still hopeful I’ll get some kind of ribbon for it.

And, finally, we decided to enter Ellie’s Christmas ornament as well.  So look for hers in the “Crafts and Decorative Arts” section too!

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*If you’re looking for a meal at the fair, make sure to go to the Maryland pavilion and have the lamb sandwich.  It’s local lamb and it is SO GOOD.  We look forward to eating it every year. It’s infinitely better than standard fair food!