Fair submissions?

[alien_sunset]

The website for my local county fair is down.

So I figured I'd ask around here.

I know it's a ways off, but I was thinking of submitting something to be judged at my next county fair. And I was wondering how one usually goes about that, and what it is like? Like what do you have to do to submit? Were there any restrictions? How was it judged? What was the process like?

This is more of a test my skills thing for me, so I really don't care about prizes, but I would still like to do my best job possible.

There are several different needle arts I could use to make something, but I'm not sure which would be more accepted/have more competition. (it's no fun when there are only two or three submissions to a category)
Posted to: knitting thread_crochet tatting

Comments

[ex-shattered767.livejournal.com]

I enter the state fair.

The Minnesota State Fair publishes actual rulebooks and whatnot in late spring/early summer (fair is the end of August to Labor Day), and it gives the dates when people entering whatever judging lots are to go drop their entry off. I just go to the fairgrounds (you can register by mail as well) with my entry, my rulebook, and ID, and the process is really quick and painless providing there's not a huge line. Then after the fair they have a couple days set up for you to go back to the building you dropped it off at and pick it up.

As far as tatting goes, they have 3 lots: clothing accessories, ornaments, and other. You can also enter tatting in some of the lunch/dinner cloth lots. The only real restriction I know of is they don't allow dolies (tatted or otherwise, as far as I know).

Judging is done on little scorecards attached to your entry. When you pick it up, your scorecard is still attached to it. The MN state fair uses the following criteria:

design (beauty, suitability, color) - 20pts
workmanship - 20pts
originality - 15pts
difficulty of project - 15pts
usefulness - 10pts
value in point of interest - 10pts
value of article in relation to work done and material used - 10pts

They also have a place for comments, so that the judge can point out specific things they like or they think you need to improve on.

As far as number of submissions, the tatting lots are actually fairly popular, and the people who do registering actually recognize my work as tatting when I drop it off or pick it up.