More about the Local Show

At the end of June, our region had its annual local show. The show, as I mentioned in this post, is a bit like a local town fair: it showcases all the best the town has to offer: best cattle, best horses, best wood-chopping, best arts and crafts, best produce. And, of course, there's side-show alley, with its rides, dodgem cars, fun houses, laughing clowns, games of chance, and the quintessential ferris wheel. When you live in a small country community, with not much to do, it's always great fun to go along to the show.

These pics were taken from up atop said ferris wheel. As you can see, being a country show, it's a fairly small affair, and beyond the show grounds is a whole lot of ... well... nothing! Countryside, sugar cane fields, and - just out of shot of the photos - the small town of Proserpine.

In this photo (below), in the top left corner, you can see a building with a green roof. This building held the produce, cooking, school, photography, and art and craft displays.



Including...

the crochet blankets...

...all FIVE of them! (Told you it was a small show!)

See my Rainsong Blanket there? On the bottom shelf? :-) Nice! I feel like one-of-the-gang! :-)

I feel I must comment, though, to the way our work was displayed in comparison with other crafts, particularly the quilts. Now, no offence intended to all the quilters out there - it is a difficult and admirable craft, I'm sure. But the quilts are hung, on rods, up high, while the crochet blankets were left scrunched in a corner!

Okay, maybe they weren't scrunched, but you can see for yourselves how they were displayed:

And you can see, in the background of the photo above, the back of one of the quilts, hanging up as I've described. I wish I'd taken more photos of the quilts to help explain this more, but basically they were hanging up all around the pavilion.

Here is the winning "blankets and lap-rugs" crochet entry. It's made of those repeated motifs that are meant to look like a 3D cube. I like that 3D illusion stuff. There's a free pattern for a similar one here. I think this blanket would have looked a lot more 3D if it had been given a better display.

Does quilting really deserve more display space and admiration? Is it true that people see crochet as "the poor-man's craft", so lowly and easy that it only deserves a little corner? I'm just curious on your thoughts here. I think for the work involved in our blankets, they could have been displayed a little more generously.

But, regardless of how they were shown, it was nice to see my first-ever-completed blanket there, amongst them. I felt really chuffed. :-)

Oh, and here is a close-up of second prize. Very nice stitch-work:


Who knows, maybe I'll have some luck next year. I've already got some projects in mind! :-)

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your journey though our local, country show. It's only small, but it's always a lot of fun, and it feels good to be a part of it!

Till next time,
Caz :)