It's Fall Fair Season

It's fall fair season here in the Ottawa Valley and one that has a long and storied tradition is the Carp Fair, which has been running since 1863. Known as the Best Little Fair in Canada, it is organized by a small army of volunteers, none the least of which is our good friend Jean. This year her duties include organizing the quilt show and the Community Quilt Blocks competition. Time to buy some fabric!

She is not a quilter so she reached out to Betty and I for a little help. At the end of May we all got together and did a little shopping. She decided on the theme of Summers' End.

I offered to cut the bundles she needed (I think there were 24 parcels of 10" blocks) and she got busy circulating them. In a matter of a few short days they were all spoken for, so no need to spend weeks flogging them. Little wonder, as they are beautiful. The blocks will be used to make a quilt or quilted items to be raffled at the 2024 fair.

I had such good intentions, but it was not to be. In my mind's eye the star in the Missouri Star Quilt Company's logo was just the ticket - love it - but I was going to be short of cream for the background. So disappointing.

Skipper to the rescue! This looked like it would work, and it was for a 12" block. Bonus! But, when I started looking at the fabric requirements I was back to the same issue: not enough background fabric. 

Regardless of how much I tried there's only so much that you are going to get out of a 10" square of fabric. I toyed with incorporating another gold into the corner pieces but it just wasn't working for me.

So it sat. And as time marched on my window kept closing. We're meeting Jean tomorrow to hand in our creations so time's up! Stay tuned to see where we landed....M