The judge said

you need to do...this....or that...or something else.

Right around me yesterday there were people who had acted as "stewards" to the judges in the Handicrafts section of the Show. Every so often I would hear the words, "The judge said..."

I said the words myself, more than once. Unless people ask I don't say much but if there has been something specific then it can help and encourage people to enter something again.

 This year was no different.  There were people who wanted to know things. One woman asked why her rug was entered in the wrong class. When I explained she looked at me and then smiled and said, "Thanks. That makes sense." And off she went apparently quite happy that, although she had not won a prize, she would know what to do next time.

There was the obvious "newbie". I explained - not for the first time - about doing what we call "blocking your work". She was sufficiently interested to take out her phone and start searching. "This sort of thing?" she asked me and, when I agreed, she added,"Okay, I'll go and look."

"But I made it with a crochet hook!" someone else wailed. I had to explain that, just because she had used a crochet hook did not mean that the item she had made came under the definition of "crochet". I don't think she really believed me.

Inevitably there was the woman who enters multiple items each year and expects to get a first prize for each of them. Her work is good, very good  - but sometimes there are people whose work the judge considers to be even better.  I congratulated her as I handed her items over but I was met with stony silence. The young girl, not out of her teens, who did win a first in the same section actually looked at me in bewilderment and said, "I still don't believe this is real...my father will be so pleased." It turned out that her mother had died some time ago. She had found all the yarn in her mother's stash, taught herself how to knit from internet videos and then made the item. As she rushed off to work saying "and my boss said to come and get it so I can show the others" I thought of how different the two attitudes were - and which one I preferred.

There was the woman who came in with her teenage son. They had both made "memory" boxes which we pass on to the Women's and Children's hospital. He won the first prize. She had won a commended. "I lost a child in 2015" she told me, "I was given one of these." I looked at the boy to congratulate him and he smiled and put his arm around his mother. There were no words necessary.

It is this sort of thing which makes all the hard work worthwhile. I hope I am still fit enough to help next year because encouraging other people to participate is good. Seeing what they have made, even if it has many faults, is encouraging. If people still want to create then I have some hopes for the future.