Room to Crow

There has been an interesting discussion on the Stashbuster Yahoo Group on entering quilts in shows.  Some people have had a negative experience and that is unfortunate.  Some people don't want to have their quilts judged, but others liked seeing their quilts displayed.  Some ignore the judges comments or take them with a grain of salt.  I entered one of my quilts in my guild's show last spring.  Overall it was a positive experience, except next time I will have the quilt finished before I commit to entering!

I belong to a small bee called “Room to Grow” and we entered a group quilt into the Quilt Chairman’s Challenge. The challenge was to use 30’s fabrics. No one in the group cared for pastel 30’s, but Mary Beth went shopping and found some reds, blacks, and yellows we could work with.

Because the applique team added purple and green to the rooster we shopped for more fabric and added green and purple 30's.  The rooster is a pattern, but the rest we worked our way through.  It was a challenge to get the quilt big enough and deal with the rectangular rooster as we added borders.

picture shows Kimberly's excellent hand stitching

The quilt is fairly straight.  I just pinned it quickly to the wall to snap some pictures.

The judges comments were on a preprinted sheet with ratings of Excellent, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement.  We received mostly excellents with two satisfactories  - border (straight) and corners and edge treatment (miters not stitched closed). 

Judge wrote "Excellent choice of fabrics for rooster (maybe she doesn't like 30's either?)  Good job on piecing.  Long seam lines should be perfectly straight".

Dana helped me quilt it and was instrumental in getting the sun rays in the center.  There are some wrinkles in the picture of the center that are from having the quilt folded.  I probably should have blocked the quilt and taken more care with the stitch in the ditch.  I feel like it was a positive experience and I have learned from it.