Well, I didn’t take a ribbon in at the State Fair this year. I was a little disappointed as I thought I had a good chance this year. As a reminder, here are the mittens I entered.
(Get the free pattern for these Newgrange Mittens here.)
There were nineteen entries in the colorwork mittens category and they gave out five ribbons. It is one on the larger knitting categories. I’m very interested to see my scoring and notes when I pick my mittens back up next week. In the meantime, I thought you would like to see what did win.
1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place
4th Place
5th Place
© 2005 – 2014 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
No way! I really don’t understand how the judging happens at the Fair. Not only are yours demonstrating skill, but the mittens are also beautiful which I’m sorry but I can’t say about the others.
I don’t know anything about difficulty or workmanship of the others, but on appearance alone, yours totally should have placed.
Thank you. The judges do seem to have a real preference for a certain Scandinavian look at the fair which my mittens didn’t have.
Excuse me. You were robbed. That is my opinion. I love the look of the 5th place ribbon as well. The others look a bit generic actually. (none of them are embarrassing, but yours are stunning and original.) Silly judges. Bravo to you.
I don’t want to deny any of the other winners their ribbons. All of these mittens were really well done and the competition is stiff in this category. I just think the judges tend to pick a certain style.
Ribbon or not, these are beautiful. It looks like there were probably many that deserved a ribbon. I agree, it does look like they were interested in a certain Scandinavian style. It almost looks like they cod subdivide the category.
Oh, that is disappointing! Your mittens are so stylish and beautifully made. But it’s always hard to know exactly what the judges are looking for.
At our county show a few years ago there was a class for ‘A Decorated Sponge Cake with an Olympic theme’. All but one of the entries were disqualified! Lots of them had used the Olympic rings symbol which is trademarked, so they were out. And most of the others had decorated the sides of the cake as well as the top, which the judge decided made them a gateau rather than a cake. It was ridiculous but in the end you just had to laugh. When you don’t know what rules you’ll be judged by, there’s no way of knowing what you’ll need to do to have a chance of winning.
Yup, judging can be so objective! I knew after the last couple of years they tend to favor a certain style of mitten, but I still entered what I thought were my best one. Next year I’m going full on Scandinavian!
Kat, I would have voted for you. Yours rank high compared to the others and even if you know they go for a certain style, you win the prize for originality. I prefer the design on yours. The others are a little too predictable. And the workmanship and skill it takes to pull those off, Brava!
Thank you. All the mittens were beautiful, you just always hope for a winner 😉