Minnesota's State Fair is far and away the best state fair in the world. My whole family loves it and spends a day each year. They went last Saturday, which was the only day no one had to work.
I never go.
I don't like crowds, rides, barns, crafts or food on sticks.
There's nothing at the fair for me.
But I'm glad the rest of them love it and I'm glad they go and mostly I'm glad they don't make me go with them.
Last Friday, I was up at the Picket Fence and the proprietress told me that one of our customer's had won second place at the fair with a tuffet I'd designed.
A tuffet is a footstool with a wooden base and a rounded, built up cushion like Little Miss Muffet sat on. This particular design was a carousel. I'd first designed the carousel over twenty years ago and did it three or four times as an area rug. Then, about five years ago, I did it as a tuffet; the base was painted bright red and the legs had gold stripes to mimic the posts on a merry go round. Each tuffet panel was a different carousel horse and the button on top was red and white awning stripes. This was not a special order, it was in the shop for a few months before someone bought it.
Well, someone did buy it, worked it, finished it and entered the finished piece in the fair and won.
You can imagine my reaction.
"Second place!!???? What the hell won FIRST place?"
Turns out the first place piece had also come from the Picket Fence. Not that the shop gets any credit, because they don't. Neither do I.
I don't mind, I made a ton of money off that thing. I just think it's funny that there's a ribbon stuck on a tuffet at the fair, which I designed, I painted, and if you turn it over and look at the bottom, has my signature on it and someone else won a ribbon for it. Oh well, she did get to pick out which threads she used. And the multi colored fringe she put around the button and the base? All her.
Here's the best part; I asked my kids if they saw it at the Fair.
"Yes! We did see it." said Josie. "It was the ugliest thing I've ever seen."
