Catching up with quilt news

 Continuing her travels, Polly Pocket went out to the San Diego Quilt Show in early fall and won the Wall Quilt Category - a hand made ribbon and $200 in cash ;)  Charm Stars went too, and got some nice judges comments, but didn't place.  A lady attending the show photographed them and I saw them on her facebook page - that was a surreal moment to be sure!  The lighting with Charm Stars was great - you can really see the quilting :)

Our local guild show came up the first weekend of October.  I had already entered Polly in a previous year, so I needed a new wholecloth to enter.  I put the fist stitches in on Saturday morning and had the quilt ready to drop off Friday morning - 26 hours of quilting!  It was worth it though, as the new quilt "Memories of My Wedding Day" took first place in her category, and won "Best Machine Quilting" which is the ribbon I really wanted.  The cool part is, since I was in the judging room, I was able to hear all the judges comments.  And I also saw the Best of Show decision come down to the winning quilt and mine - WOW!  I was fine with losing out, the winning quilt was a beautiful applique that she had been working on for four years.  Funny thing is, the same quilt pattern, done in different colors, won Best of Show at the previous show two years earlier!  It's a great pattern, that's for sure.

I don't have any pictures of the quilt hanging - forgot my camera.  But this is a picture of the new quilt.

 

After the fun of competing this year, I decided to enter some shows for 2017.  My hope is to win a Judges ribbon or an honorable mention, I truly don't have any illusions that I could win at these big national shows.  I've seen the winning quilts, and I'm not there yet.

Funny thing though, even though I have 2 quilts to enter, I find that there are times where I don't have anything to send out because the quilts are already tied up at a show.  Some of the shows have you submit your quilt almost a month early, and then don't send it home for a couple weeks after the show.  I didn't realize that one of the companies that hosts several shows, offers the option to have them hold your quilt between shows.  Great - less postage, but bummer - quilt is tied up for months.  And I found this all out when I entered Polly into a show in Daytona Beach in early February.  And thinking she would be back in time, I entered her into the nearby Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington, in early March.  After she got accepted into both shows, I discovered that she won't be home in time to go to Bloomington :(   It sounds crazy, but I feel like the only good solution is to recreate Polly and send "Polly new" to Bloomington.  I've unearthed the design and been to the print shop to have it enlarged.  Now I have to trace it out on fabric and stitch it up.  I will change out the McTavishing for a micro-stipple instead.  I think the stipple will make the feather designs pop a lot more.

So far, I've entered Polly Pocket in Daytona Beach and Paducah.  She's been accepted to Daytona Beach.  The Wedding Memories quilt has been entered into Lancaster, PN and been accepted.  I have a whole calendar page set up for where they go the rest of the year - they almost need their own social secretary to keep it all straight!!!