quilt show Archives - QA Creations

Columbus Day weekend marked my first New York quilt show. The Dutchess Heritage Quilt Show is every other year in Poughkeepsie, New York at Dutchess Community College and is put on (mostly) by members of the First Dutchess Quilters (but it’s not technically the guild’s show).

They had a wide variety of vendors (16!) and put on a fashion show and workshops in conjunction with the show.

I entered a few quilts, and was quite pleased with my first showing up here. I like to enter quilt shows because it’s one of the few places that you can receive true feedback on the quality of your quilting and piecing. Show and Tell at guilds is great, but it’s purpose is to share and celebrate and inspire (not to critique). Classes teach a new technique, but don’t necessarily help you learn what you need to learn to improve the techniques you already know.

In the interest of removing some of the mystique from quilt show judging and to help others learn from my lessons, I want to share the comments for my quilts.

The first quilt I entered was my Forging Steel quilt, which is in Make Modern issue 8. This quilt earned 1st place in Pieced Wall Quilt, a Judge’s Choice award, and a Vendor’s Choice award (Amelia’s Garden). The comments for this quilt (and all the others in this show) were very in-depth and positively phrased even if referring to improvements.

Fabrics lend appeal
Unexpected quilting choice add so much visual excitement
Very good quilting technique
Excellent precision in piecing
Excellent binding

I also entered Square Dance in the Group Quilt category. It earned 1st place in the Group Quilt category, and a Vendor’s Choice award (Easy Piecing). If you like this quilt and want to make your own, my PDF pattern is available on Craftsy here.

Wonderful color palette
Value placement shows well
Piecing is excellent
Quilting design in good scale
Quilting technique very well done
Binding excellent
Wonderful interpretation of modern quilt

One of Those Days was a mini quilt I made a tutorial for that had a few issues, which is probably why it did not do as well. I earned 3rd place in the Miniature category. I use a smaller binding for miniatures – a 2″ double fold binding, but I guess should go even smaller in the future.

Fabrics and quilting design well chosen to keep scale for miniature
Traditional look successfully achieved
Excellent piecing and quilting technique
Binding, although well secured, should be in scale for miniature

I also entered my Nature of Purple quilt in the Pieced Wall quilt category, and this quilt just does not show well. I also used white thread for part of the piecing before I thought about it. I switched to purple thread later, but after quilting if you look super close, you can see the white thread a little bit.

Modern interpretation is successfully achieved
Take care with obtrusive piecing thread
Complementary quilting design is successfully achieved
Excellent binding

How have your experiences entering a quilt show shaped your quilting? Has it been a positive experience with valuable feedback, or are there things that you wish had gone differently?

Linking to: Tips and Tutorials Tuesdays @ Late Night Quilter, Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict

I occasionally find myself in an odd place in the quilting world style wise – I am not super modern, yet to a traditional quilter I look modern. I think one of my old guilds determined I was “modern” simply by my age. I have embraced the “modern traditional” moniker, but it’s not always an easy category to fit in.

This is my first go at a more definitively modern piece. The pattern is not mine (probably takes away from the modernity, right?), but was a piece for the Carolina Longarm Association. They are trying to put together a display with modern and traditional mini quilts that will all be the same two designs, but with a wide variety of fabrics and quilting styles. It should be a really cool display once it’s done.

Quilt Name: Nature of Purple

Size: 29″ x 29″

I really enjoyed quilting this piece. I loved combining the straight lines with the curves to create contrast within the piece. I also really like the design I used inside the rectangles. It’s a straight-line spiral, for lack of a better description, but is fun to use in a space like that.

I did learn some good lessons from this quilt – such as purple is extremely hard to photograph and the quilting does not show up well unless you are really close to it.

Dense quilting would also probably show up better with either a double layer of batting, or a higher quality puff or mixed cotton/poly blend. I used a cheap cotton/poly blend I had laying around because I wan’t planning on quilting it this densely when I started.

Unfortunately, it is not an impressive piece when you see it hung next to other quilts. There is a certain beauty in its simplicity, and the negative space leaves a lot of room to quilt, but it’s still a very simple quilt with very little piecing. I feel like the photo below is a Where’s Waldo game, but you are looking for a small purple quilt that blends into the black background curtains. (Photo borrowed from Christa Quilts, link to her NQA experience roundup).

I entered it into the National Quilting Association show this year to get feedback and try to improve my quilting. As far as feedback, I found the comments to be very useful. The judges found a couple things on this quilt that I had missed, and called me out on errors that I knew existed. It was also nice to receive more than one or two comments, which is more normal for a local level show.

Entering this quilt was a worthwhile experience, and it is pushing me to be better. When I received the quilt back in the mail, I saw that it had been held for the category and a judge’s choice. It’s bittersweet news in a way – it was good, but not good enough. It just means I need to improve my work and make a better quilt next year!

Even if it didn’t win anything, I still like it. I have it hanging above my longarm in my new setup. I still love the purple. I wish it quilted better so I could use it more often, but as you can see below the purple just absorbs all light and makes it look like a purple black hole. Eventually, it will find its way back to North Carolina, but I’m not quite ready to give it up yet.