Warren tops in knitting, quilting at fair

FINDLAY — Diane Warren's knitted baby blanket with whales — of soft acrylic yarn for her first great-grandchild — won First Place and Best of Show in knitting at the Hancock County Fair on Tuesday. Her doll quilt won First Place and Best of Show in hand quilting. Warren also garnered multiple other awards. In fact, all six of her entries in knitting, quilting and sewing won a ribbon. But among all the things she does, knitting is her favorite. "It's so fascinating that you take a piece of string and bring something out of it," Warren said. "I mean, this starts out, you're only working with a piece of yarn and there's all various ways, there's various fibers." Her wool-and-silk-blend shawl with brown, orange, gold and rust, took First Place in the knitted scarves and shawls category. "It was expensive fabric, but it was fun to work with," Warren said. "It feels good in your hands when you're knitting." It was hand dyed, so it looks good. The silk gives it a bit of shine and adds strength, she said. Warren elaborately knitted leaves — each leaf had 18 rows — into the bottom border of the shawl, and beads were knitted into the leaves' veins. Her knitted baby sweater, of acrylic yarn, with tug boat buttons to go with the whales on the blanket, won second place. Warren has been knitting for 55 years. She knits while watching TV. She knits while watching a parade. She knits at soccer games. "I'm looking to see what everybody's doing, and knitting away," Warren said. "I'm usually listening to a story on tape while I'm knitting, while (her husband, Jack) has the TV on, and I know what's going on with all of them," she said. "That's just how my brain works. It's very meditative, very relaxing." "It just gets very meditative because you're doing the same thing over and over," Warren said. But even meditative practices can bring challenging moments. Last year, shortly before the Fair's deadline to turn in her knitting project — a long-sleeve pullover sweater — Warren found problems. She had finished one sleeve and was nearly done with the other sleeve. "And I found a couple of mistakes. If you get the pattern off, it makes a line across. And it was so obvious," she recalled. "I thought, 'I can't put it in the Fair like that.'" "So, it's Friday night, I have to have them at the fairgrounds by 7 o'clock Monday night," Warren said. "I don't have time to completely reknit all of these sleeves in that short of time." She improvised. "I unraveled them (the sleeves) back and I put a cuff on them," she said. "So kind of a puffy look." She had converted the sweater from long sleeves to short sleeves, and entered it in the Fair competition. "And I got a blue ribbon," Warren said. She is now reknitting the sleeves to make them long again so she can wear the sweater this winter. "It's wool for heaven's sake."