I know I've been absent for almost a month but it's been for a good reason. I've been finishing up entries for our local quilt show which occurred this past weekend.
Anyone who knows me personally, knows I hate entering quilt shows. It's just never really been my thing. I know my work isn't perfect. I know what I could've been done better with each piece. And I cringe at the thought of a judge critiquing my work and pointing out the flaws and why I didn't win.
With that said...since moving to Florida I've made some friends that encouraged me to enter. Sometimes they even had to give me a kick to keep going and finish. And I'm glad they did because it pushed me to want to do my best work. I'm still not going to win any awards in Houston or Paducah but I'm pleased with the results.
First, as a group we entered the Group Challenge and took third place. For our challenge we each created a quilt using Tula Pink's City Sampler book. Which blocks, how many, and the layout was up to each person. As a group, I think we did pretty good. They all looked good next to one another and had cohesion.
Here are the pics of our group entry. Thank you Joey for letting me steal photos from your Facebook page.
On the left is Joey's map of Barcelona using Zen Chic's Barcelona fat quarter bundle. She even added in a Mariner's Star and map legend. It was very cool...and very outside the box.
On the right is Margy's quilt. She used Kate Spain's Simply Color bundle along with other pieces from her stash. Margy was the only one of us that made all 100 blocks.
On the left is Donna's bed runner. She used a small sampling of Tula's blocks and used Asian prints.
On the right is Maureen's using tone on tone prints. Never in a million years would I have thought to use Tula's blocks in the way she did. It was a pretty awesome idea...and very effective!
And here is mine...feathers and all. I call it "Dear Tula." It may look familiar to you because I created a smaller version with leftover blocks in December to practice my feathers before quilting this one.
The judge's comments were that my quilt had "excellent asymmetrical balance" and the "change in scale works well." She also said that I need to "strive for more consistent stitch length" which I was painfully aware of before entering it. Sometimes I move faster than my machine can quilt.
My second entry was "The Butterfly." Back in January it received a Best Machine Applique award from the board members of the guild that hosted the challenge and it hung at the Mancuso World Quilt Show in West Palm Beach.
At this show, it received second place in the Small Machine Applique category. The judge's comments were that it had "high contrast fabrics for striking design" and an "additional border treatment may have added to this design." I totally agree about the additional border...if I were ever to do another black quilt for a show. It just doesn't show well against a black curtain...a definite lesson learned.
She also noted bearding on the quilt and that I needed to use black batting...which I did. It just goes to show judges aren't always right and they make mistakes sometimes too.
And lastly, my third and final entry was for the Member Challenge. I call it "Tropical Beauty".
Here is a picture of it after it was blocked and bound. Sorry the photo is not better. It's hard to see all the feathers in the quilting which is what I'm especially proud of. The challenge winners were decided by ballot as a Viewer's Choice. And I'm happy to say it took second place.
The challenge theme was "Quilting in Paradise." We were to create a quilt no larger than 24" square with some type of foliage and we had to use the green fabric on the left in the first photo below.
Here's a look at all the entries as they hung at the show. I was really impressed by all the entries.
In this photo you can see the 1st (turquoise) and Honorable Mention (white) winners.
And here is 3rd (yellow) and 2nd (green-me) winners.
Well I'm off and running. I have a couple of quilts to longarm.
Till next time...hope y'all have a great rest of your week!
