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Done Sewing for the Summer

I'm rather behind on the blog. I've been busy sewing, but not keeping up with this part of the process. I just finished a top and shorts for my younger daughter. Hopefully, I get that up soon. For myself, I made two knit tops that I wore without photographing and now need to wait until they cycle through the laundry. Two more things I made are gifts and I can't post those until they are received.

Now, the title of this post means that I am done sewing summer clothing, not that I am done with sewing for the rest of the summer. Some summer things may still pop up, but I don't have anything planned right now. I like sewing summer clothing. T-shirts, shorts, skirts, sleeveless dresses - all easy-to-sew, easy-to-wear things. But, there are some good reasons to hang it up now.

We are leaving for two weeks of vacation on Monday. By the time we get home, get unpacked and back into normal life, it will be mid-August. Getting all the kids set with warm weather clothes felt like a marathon that I just finished and now it is time to start on fall. Perhaps getting a head start will help.

And then there's the fair. The fair in this town is a pretty big deal. It is in mid-September and everyone goes and lots of people enter things to be judged. We had just arrived here before the fair last year. I did check out the sewing and knitting entries and noted some interesting things. As far as I could tell, there was no scoring system, no explanation given for the placement earned (1st, 2nd, 3rd), no provision for level of difficulty of the piece or of skill level for the person entering the item. It all seems very haphazard and I would have liked to ask a judge about some of the prizes after looking at the prize-winning entries last year. But, there is money involved with the prizes. First place wins $10, second $8 and third $5.

So, in planning what I might sew for fall, I've been looking at the fair prize list and thinking of things that I might be able to enter and those will be the first fall things I sew. I won't sew something just to enter it in the fair and I'm not buying any new yardage. I'll have to buy some notions, lining, trim, etc., to make what I've got work, but that's nothing new. So, if I win something, that would be a bonus. If I don't, I haven't really lost anything. I have never entered anything I've made to be judged, so this will be a first for me. Once we get back from vacation, I'll be counting down the weeks until the fair.

Bring on fall! Well, maybe not until after our vacation is over....

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