The Tanana Valley State Fair came to town recently. Longer ago than I'd meant to let this post languish! Husband and I went and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: deep fried zucchini and elephant ears are my annual treats at the Fair; we listened to live music by dear friends and incredibly talented musicians (Milk & Honey: shoutout!); and we brought home a prism to hang in a window and make rainbows across the house. This is also an annual tradition. By the time this baby is a teenager our windows are going to be ridiculously sparkly.

AND.... drumroll please......

We admired the ribbons I won!

I think my very favorite part of the Fair is looking at all the entries in the different divisions: Livestock, Native Arts, and all the fiber related divisions are my favorites. 4-H projects are pretty fun to look at too.

After a few years of intending to enter my work and never quite getting around to actually doing so, I was really proud of myself this year for getting my butt into gear this year and getting over to the Fairgrounds on entry day.

My scarf (blue and white shadowweave in an original design) won a second place ribbon for Handwoven Scarves.

I also submitted a set of table linens that I made for a dear friend as a wedding gift. They went to Fiji for their honeymoon, so I designed the set with tropical colors. It was a really fun project to work with, I was able to play with the structure: there's plainweave, a couple point twills, and waffle weave in the set - all from the same warp. And I think the final product has a pretty cool effect, using these really traditional structures in a really traditional product (what's more traditional than a wedding trousseau!?!) but with bright fun modern colors!

Apparently the judges agreed with me! 'Cause the napkins got a Blue ribbon!

The process overall was really fun. Seeing my work displayed, getting comments from a couple of community members who had seen it, and also when I went to pick up my pieces after the fair was over, I got the feedback sheets from the judges. There was some really valuable and constructive criticism from other experienced weavers. I think I appreciated that part the most! I will definitely be entering things next summer!