Paisley Pavane traveled to Pennsylvania for the Quilt Odyssey show a couple of weeks ago. I almost forgot entirely that it was there, partly because of the moving confusion still hanging around on some things, and partly because I didn’t actually pack up the quilt and send it there myself; the nice folks at the NQA show sent it on to Quilt Odyssey after the show in Columbus.

Since I’d kind of put it out of my mind for a bit, I was surprised to hear that the quilt was awarded the Husqvarna-Viking Award for Best Machine Quilting! Wow! How cool! Now I’m feeling that fever, that inner prompting to work on a show quilt. I have one partly done, as you may remember, but it’s The Misery Quilt. I may not be feeling quite enough of the fever to tackle THAT right now, and I have some other things on my plate that need to take precedence anyway. Eh, I think I’ll just enjoy the little boost, and hope that Paisley Pavane makes it into the AQS Show in Des Moines, especially since I’ll be there to see it in the show!

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Paisley Pavane is on it’s way to Columbus, Ohio, and will be on display at the National Quilt Association Quilt show June 19-21, 2008. At one point, I was planning on going to the show with the quilt, and with my girlfriend Dawn, but ITMan’s new job and the move got in the way.

That’s okay, since that means I have some more time to finish up something really grand to enter in the show when I’m going to be able to be there too. Not that Paisley Pavane isn’t grand, it is, but I have some other things waiting in the wings that might be even better.

The funny thing right now is that in the midst of the pre-move craziness, I entered this quilt into two other shows as well, only one of which I can remember! So I’ll probably be getting a couple of envelopes at some point, with what I hope is good news inside, but I have no idea where one of them will be coming from or when to look for it. This is a great argument for photocopying entry forms before sending them in!

I haven’t entered anything in a show for a while, and I’m really looking forward to some feedback from the judges on this quilt. Paisley Pavane was the Third Place winner in the New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest from MAQS, but even though the quilt gets published in the book and goes on tour and all, you don’t get any feedback in the form of critique or judging sheets from the judges at all. It will also be interesting to see how the quilt fares in a much larger venue than the MAQS contest, where it will be shown with and compared to so many more quilts.

If you’re headed to Columbus for the show, keep an eye out for Paisley Pavane. It’ll be the one sparkling at you from across the room, with it’s 3,000 Swarovski crystals!

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During my travels on the Internet this morning, I thought I’d stop in at IQA and see if the entry form for the 2008 show was available yet, thinking I might be able to finish up The Misery Quilt in time to enter, and wondering in the back of my mind what category I’d enter it in. It’s beyond “traditional,” what with the embroidery already there, the original layout, the mixed techniques, and the embellishments that I plan to add later.

…there were only two lonely categories for traditional quilts, one for appliquéd quilts and one for pieced quilts…

The entry form wasn’t there yet, but I looked at the page with the winning quilts from the 2007 show, and I was quite surprised when the categories for art quilts just went on and on and on, in multiple (but seemingly) minuscule variations for different sizes, types, and styles, and then way down at the bottom, there were only two lonely categories for traditional quilts, one for appliquéd quilts and one for pieced quilts which were not even further divided into “small” and “large.”

I didn’t enter the IQA show last year, but seeing the winners page reminded me that I’d been meaning to go on about this very issue for quite some time, ever since I read Paula’s post that referred to Jeanna Kimball’s post about judging the Houston Show in late September, 2007. Jeanna Kimball is a traditional quilter, obviously a good one since she’s out there judging, and she made some interesting observations about the number of traditional quilts that were entered in the Houston show:

One element of the contest, however, surprised me a great deal—I still can’t get over it. The last time I paid attention to quilt contests, the categories with the most quilts seemed to be traditional quilts.

It is not so any longer. The entries have dropped so low in traditional pieced and traditional appliqué that there is only one category for each—no longer are there two categories with one being large quilts and the other being small. What happened!? Where are all of the traditional quilts?

I have to second that question, but I’m afraid I know what happened to the traditional quilts. The quilters who enter the larger shows have discovered that traditional doesn’t win big. Oh sure, if you have the best traditional quilt in the show, you get the first place award in the traditional category, but when was the last time a quilt from the traditional category was awarded “Best of Show” with the big money attached? Truthfully, I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ve watched (and entered) the major shows since 2001, and my overall feeling about it just from what I’ve seen and experienced is that it’s been many years. Read the rest of this entry »

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