The Judges Have Spoken and The Bloggers Quilt Festival.

 

With the return of my beautiful (I love it, so I'm going to say that, sorry if it sounds arrogant) Chevron quilt this week, came the grading from the judges.  I had thought before it arrived that I might be a little sensitive to any perceived negative comments. Surprisingly enough, I've taken the comments all rather well (they went easy on me), I can even go as far as to say, I had a little chuckle at one or two of them.  


Overall I received all "Good" and "Very Good" across the categories, and the 3 judges, except one which was "Satisfactory" from one of the judges, in the category of Visual Impact, Interpretation of the Theme.  Now whilst for Visual Impact I might disagree, I think it is a very eye catching quilt, but in relation to the category, Special Themes, New Beginnings, I'm not sure I had actually entered it in the most appropriate category, so i'll give them that. ;o). The same judge described it as "A dynamic piece with appealing colours" which I think is a really positive overall comment, and made me pretty happy- especially considering this wasn't supposed to be a "show" quilt, it started out as me off on a sewing tangent!  
 
Another of the judges commented that "A bit more quilting would have added a bit more to this, especially the background", and I can see their point, but I didn't want an over quilted piece on the actual chevrons. In retrospect, some quilting on the background white would have accentuated the chevrons, so also good feedback.

And the 3rd set of comments were overall positive, "Lovely colours and quilting to complement it" why thank you, but at this point, we head off on separate paths "Might have been better on a white on white print", nope, sorry, I prefer the solids, but ok, "or batik as background".  Sorry, what was that, I didn't quite hear you, did you mention the B word?  Yep, you read that correctly, batik, BATIK, are you serious, haha, no chance. I'll be honest, I hate batik, I cannot think of anything less suitable for a quilt like that I wanted to feel fresh, than a murky background, never, not going to happen, ever, EVER! I laughed out loud, I admit it. :o)
Overall, I was pretty pleased with the feedback, some good, constructive, well thought out (on the whole) comments, and considering this was thrown together Improv style with no pretensions to being a show quilt, and that the actual quilting etc was thrown together at the last minute (in a total panic, and on 3 different sewing machines), not getting torn a new one about the quality of my work is a positive.  I have a feeling the Festival Of Quilts judges wont go so easy on me, but hopefully my project for that one will be up another level, we'll see, maybe not! 

This quilt will have it's hanging sleeve removed in the next few days, and then it is off to its other home, not far, on the "other sofa" in our lounge.  Yep, this one is going to be Mr H.O.C's sofa quilt, but in typical man style, he actually prefers this side, the back

Men! ;o)

So with all of that loving in mind, I have decided to enter this one in the Bloggers Quilt Festival, there are some amazing quilts in the competition, and this is my first time emtering that too, go and take a look, I'm in the throw quilt category.

Quilt Stats:
 48 x 69 inches 
Machine Quilted across the chevrons by me!
Improv pieced from solids into squares, then cross cut and pieced to create a chevron effect.  
Ange x 
Link here