Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org Welcome to Common Ground.

I'm Producer/Director Randy Cadwell.

Every year ordinary people and young 4-H members bring in their best personal projects, crafts, animals all to be analyzed at Minnesota county fairs.

Today we look at that intense process of county fair judging.

My neighbor is and a good friend of mine is an active 4-H family and she encouraged me to enter a few things into the open class and so I did that first year and it was so much fun that I've entered things every year since.

I'm a spinner and weaver primarily.

And, right now, I'm spinning flax into linen that I grew in my garden.

I joined a Fiber Art Guild, and I bought a loom, and I started out making towels and eventually I got into rag rugs.

And I have probably three looms in the house, maybe four now, and it's been a fun hobby.

I've always always liked making things.

Usually the things I make are gifts, you know, a lot of gifts because the hours that go into it.

The first year I entered a handwoven towel and a few other handwoven things and maybe a basket, a woven basket.

They recently added a category for a skein of spun yarn and I think I'm the only one that enters linen, most of the other entrants are going to be wool yarn so that was fun when they added a couple more categories.

But it was mostly weaving.

I did rugs, and I've done some a lot of felting with wool so I've entered that.

I started entering some jams and I'll do a loaf of cardamom bread for the ethnic bread category.

So I plan on having a skein of yarn for them every year.

This is my third skein that I've spun this year.

They need to be scoured and I'll possibly dye them before taking them to the fair and I'll choose which one of the three is the best.

The first time I entered the county fair, the Beltrami County Fair was I believe 20 years ago in 2004.

I entered the owl that you can see over there.

I like to cross stitch too and I won a grand champion ribbon and I was like wow I couldn't believe I won this big ribbon and so I got the book and I started looking at what could I enter next year.

So for the past 20 years I've been entering a lot of things in the fair and having a lot of fun with it.

When I was four years old and five years old my mom taught me how to knit and crochet and so for a long time I did that, but then I was weaving, needlepointing, embroidering, beading, macrame, I mean I know how to do almost everything except for tatting.

I enter mostly in knitting and crocheting, but I also like other things.

So if I have a cross stitch done that year I'll enter a cross stitch or a needlepoint.

Every once in a while I make something for weaving and this year I'm making something that I've been working on for like three or four years and I never seem to get it done in time and this year I'm determined to get it done.

There's so many things that you can enter, you could go pretty crazy about it.

After you know when I walk around the fair I look at things and I think oh wow I could have entered that, so the next year I'll add it to my list.

I'm Samantha Dabill, I belong to the Cass County Fur and Feathers and the Cass County Ambassadors.

I'm Sophia Dabill, I'm from Cass County.

Clubs would be I'm in the Ambassadors and Fur and Feathers group.

This year at the Cass County Fair I did the fine arts and the photography this year.

I entered I think two or three photography photos, a robot for robotics, and then an upcycled taxidermy clothing stuff.

So the judging process usually starts with you coming in with all your projects.

But I just wanted to thank you all so much for being here to share your knowledge and your expertise with our 4-H youth today.

This was our 4-H showcase at the Cass County Fair and so what is going to be happening at the fair showcase is that our youth that have been working all year on their projects they're going to be coming in and meeting with a project judge who's a knowledgeable person in a certain area of expertise, anything from our stem mechanical science to photography to fine arts to performing arts.

Did you get to choose the kit or was the kit just everybody gets the same or the teacher hands them out?

My dad.

Pretty nervous it can be kind of scary since it's all the 4-H's from the Cass County at one place getting judged.

If you had this one the opposite way it wouldn't go very well.

You can also learn how to do stuff because they'll also ask you what could have you what else could have you done better.

And so why did you choose this particular idea of doing a pencil drawing of a horse?

I first found an outline like just the black outline of it and I realized it kind of looks like one of my horses.

So she mostly asked about what kind of stuff I use to make so like what kind of pencils, what brands, and why I decided on the paper I decided or like the size.

She asked me about why I did this certain thing about it and like the and why I did the colors and stuff.

Each project is judged 50% on project and 50% on the interview of the youth.

So sometimes you have a project that may not turned out turn out correctly but they do really well in the interview and you know they learned and so we're looking to see what the youth have learned from the project and sometimes that supersedes what the project absolutely looks like.

Usually I try to be very open and like remember all the stuff I did with it and try to remember like what did I use on it, why did I use it, so usually I try to keep my mind open when I come up there so as she's talking I can just be open and tell her everything about the project.

What did you find the most difficult?

Probably just graphing it down.

I don't know if it's what they think you do they're just surprised because they don't think of that there's people behind the scenes well even in front of the scenes doing this but I do joke with people my idea of fun is sitting in a metal shed in the summer talking to our youth because then it's kind of oh my gosh how can you do that and it's I love it, I absolutely love it, because we have some really fabulous youth in the state.

I'm Andrew Hinrichs and we are at the Cass County Fair in Pine River, Minnesota, getting ready to judge their Horse Show for the day.

You know every judge it's a matter of opinion and we try to be as fair as we can be.

We try to teach people as much but as much as I say I've got eyes in the back of my head I only have two sets, only two eyes, and I try to be fair with those two eyes as I can.

You know this was her first year riding Coco for the county show and just seeing the joy that it brings her to ride you know her exhibition of you know riding Coco during the fair that's what it's all about.

So I like people enjoying horses, I'm a teacher at heart, I've taught for many years as well so I enjoy being able to have the opportunity to help the riders learn how to be better which then makes them enjoy it more.

You definitely earned yourself a blue ribbon on this.

I won a red and a few blues.

So thank you for bringing it in and have fun at the fair.

I got a reserve champion in the fine arts and I got a blue in the photography.

They have worked on this project all year and you know yes we hope that they get that grand or reserve ribbon but really to you know see them be able to come in and showcase what it is that they brought and to share that with our community, I think that's really huge for them.

I'm Sharon Hokuf and I'm at the Beltrami County Fair in the Home Arts Department.

There are seven areas in this building, we have two separate entry days and they can pre-register on the computer nowadays which is wonderful.

The best thing to do is to enter your stuff ahead of time, send it in the mail because you also can enter the day that they have entries you know when you go, but then there's a big long line of people.

It's really fun being in line, too, people are actually showing each other their items and talking and like oh, I remember you from last year, and it's just it's fun, it's like a family.

What do we have here?

You have tickets?

So each item has a ticket on it and the ticket is pretty interesting because it says your name and it has the category, the class, the lot number of your item, but it has a little tab and after you give it to the ladies that are, you know, taking the registrations, they fold your name under so nobody knows who you are okay so the judges have no clue who the items belong to.

They check in each one of your items, they put those tags they pin them onto the item.

So I have some little granddaughters that are carriers they're my runners and they run the items to the seven areas where they belong.

You want to see some pretty cookies, spritz cookies.

Pickles.

I love baking.

I was to the Clearwater County Fair last week and I got lots of blue ribbons, I love baking.

Is that everything Dorothy?

For here but would you like a raisin cookie?

Well, I'm not going to say no, not to one of the best bakers.

Might be stuck together.

Thank you.

And the judging happens, well I think at 5:00 no more people can enter, so then they close the door.

They're brought in after everybody's gone and a computer prints out paperwork that shows your name on it but they still don't know who you are.

Oh that is beautifully done.

We choose judges in this home arts area who we do not tell people who they are, we try to change them every couple of years for sure so that they're never getting the same judge for 10 years in a row if they bring something for that many years or bring something different each year of course.

It's mostly people that have really been in the field a long time themselves.

For instance I have school teachers that come and are in charge of the children's department.

There are art teachers for instance.

This one needs a white.

It's blind judging so they get the items in front of them, they compare them to the other people's things in that group and then without seeing names or anything they pick their first, second, third place.

Some judges will leave notes.

So to show you some do some don't so it's not it's very preference of the judge.

I've noticed like on when I win grand champions they'll write on the back, they'll write this is fantastic or something but they just don't have time, it's not that they don't want to, it's just that they need to judge and then they need to go home and the people that are setting up the display need to get started on doing that.

And their second helper writes down who wins and then opens up the names and then the supervisor displays them for everyone to see during the fair.

That's why at the Beltrami Fair you can't see your items until probably like just after lunch on Thursday, and that's kind of the fun part, you go home and you're like okay you're a little nervous, you're wondering did somebody have something better than you?

Once I have picked which skein I'll make sure it's looking its very best, that it looks smooth and tidy and I'll put a nice label on it and I'll have to do that for everything and it usually is kind of a scramble depending on how many things that I have.

And then I take them to the fair I believe it's Wednesday night and they have more tags for me to put on, so I'll put tags on.

What's the first name?

Then I'll leave it for judging and I'll come back the next day.

Sometimes I can't make it back on Thursday I have to wait until Friday to find out how everything did.

I'm Julie Carpenter, the Superintendent of Home Activities, and we are just going to start our judging.

We do our judging a little different than 4-H cuz they do interviews, here people drop their things off and we compare them to the other people's things.

Depending on what it is, there may not be something to compare it in the category.

Our judges go in two pairs and talk over everything.

Like the quilts they'll go through and see what the stitching's like, like if the batting's even, if your threads are cut off and there's a lot of things to look at at these things.

So they're comparing with all the other ones and picking the best one.

It's not just the colors on the quilt it's the quality of how they're doing it.

To me it's just kind of an uneven stitch, what do you think?

I think you're right about that.

As far as yarn I'm not sure what exact qualities they're looking for and I'm sure it's quite a challenge for the judge because linen is quite a bit different than wool so to compare the two to see which one has higher ratings I'm not sure how they do that.

We hired a group of ladies to come in here and do them and they're seasoned.

It's definitely a more complicated pattern.

They've been doing this for years their needlepointing and their knitting, crochet.

They're experts in there, they've been doing it all their lives so they know what's good and what's not.

They can pretty well tell you what age is doing it too you know if they're in the stages of how good they are or not.

I never question the judge, they're doing good.

There's two of them so they know what they're doing.

If they're in a category by themselves.

Do you want it open?

Yeah could you open all of them?

Knitting and the sewing is a division and we have flowers as a division, we have recycled items as a division, of course, our canned goods, our baked goods, and our jellies are different too is another division.

We have disabilities for senior citizens, veterans too, so.

And vets just on the side, too, if they do.

The kids crafts of course on the side, too, they have recycled and they're really creative with duct tape.

There's a hot tub cake over there that is made out of Kit Kats and chocolate, it's got piggies in it.

It is so cute and it smells so great.

One year I had a handwoven tunic and they put awesome or excellent on the little note on the label that was on the, you know, in the exhibit.

So that was the most feedback I think I've ever gotten.

If you've never been to the fair and you've never come to see the exhibit you just won't believe the things that people make, it's just amazing, like you just can't believe that they made some of those items.

Well some people really just love those ribbons and of course they're going for the purple ribbon you know that's the grand champion.

I think it's kind of a little it's like a contest they're like ah I got first this year and last year I got first too and they just get excited about it.

I guess I up my game knowing I'm going to put things in the fair.

Mostly it's just, you know, like self-gratification, like I you know I've been knitting my whole life and crocheting and doing all these crafts and to me the whole thing is to share crafting with people, to show people what you can do.

I always get a kick out of it because I try to enter a sweater every year and a couple years ago I entered a sweater that has 14 colors, it's behind me on the couch, and I could tell that women were picking it up, they were like picking up the side of the sweater to see how did she do it, how does it look on the inside.

So I actually when I got there I pinned it up so that women can see what the inside looked like.

The community can be pretty fun.

The judging and seeing how well you do and what you can get out of it is pretty fun too.

It gives me like better skills for like if I ever want to like take part in it in the future or if I ever want to get like really big on it I have those skills if I ever want to or like share those stuff if like if I ever want to be a judge at Cass County I could because I did that when I was younger and I think that would be kind of fun to do and I think there you kind of learn some nice skills from it that can help you in the future.

There's people that craft all year around to do this.

We have two sisters who are twins and they have their nieces and nephews doing things year round and they enter it in here, it's wonderful.

They like it, they love to come and see their stuff, their names and their ribbons and yeah it's fun.

It takes a lot of time and patience to make something.

There's inspiration to see what other people make and the variety and I guess workmanship that goes into it.

It shows our neighborhood and our community the things that can be made right here in our area and it can be an opportunity to inspire other people and even if it's not a ribbon winner it's still something that people can look and say wow our neighbors made that or that was right here from our community.

Thank you for watching Common Ground.

If you have an idea for a Lakeland PBS production in north central Minnesota email us legacy@lptv.org or call 1-800-292-0922.

To watch Lakeland PBS productions online visit lptv.org or download the free PBS app.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people, November 4th, 2008.