Being judged

The studio sort-out keeps turning up interesting things. I photograph them before binning them (will sort out the photos later ... much later ...).

In 2004 and 2007 and some other years besides I've had quilts in the Festival of Quilts. The day before the show opens, the judges go round looking for The Winners - and in doing so, three separate judges tick boxes and make comments on all the quilts entered. What a job - conscientiously done! They don't finish till late in the evening.

Some people get hot under the collar about "being judged". Yes it's a disappointment to see that your work falls short in some way in someone else's eyes. Or that it's been "misunderstood". But do we always want to hear just "oh that's lovely! so clever! I love the colours you've used!" - or is a little nudge of another sort needed sometimes? And where but in these impartial assessments are we going to get feedback that helps us improve?

Over the years the feedback forms have changed. In 2004 there were three possibilities for each of the 16 criteria: excellent, good, needs attention. In 2007, four: satisfactory was added to bridge the long gap between good and needs attention.

In the Design category, the 2007 criteria are:

Fulfils category/theme rules

Visual impact

Originality/content

Composition

Colour/value/contrast

Choice and suitability of materials

Border design and/or edge treatment

Quilting design

Presentation - hangs well, clean, seam allowances

In the Construction category:

Piecing

Applique

Quilting

Choice and execution of techniques

Use of embellishment or surface design

The checklist may have changed since 2007, but these are certainly elements to keep in mind when making quilts, traditional or contemporary.

I didn't do well for "Originality/content" on the 2007 piece, Luna, even though I was trying to treat a hackneyed subject in an original way. Ho hum ... try again I did - in a series of journal quilts (see them here and here).

Luna now hangs (crookedly, oops) in a dark corner at home - a corner so dark that flash photography doesn't give the camera enough time to focus -

The central moon is layers of sheer fabrics, and the border elements are also layers of sheers - with holes cut out of the middle. How this technique developed is another story for another day; whether I want to use it again ... not sure ...

Ah, the moon

It just needs the backing - pearly "light" to shimmer through those 28 full-moons round the edges.The back of the quilting will be hidden - I used different bobbin colours to help keep track of the different colours (well, shades of grey) on the front. But those nuances have been overwhelmed by the dark/light of the fabric collage, and the silvery bits. OK, I'll do it differently next time....
The machine's "needle up" position makes this type of quilting possible. Along with the knee lift, which allows the fabric to be moved easily after each row. When I tried this type of quilting on the other machine, which has only a "needle down", it ended up as "extreme applique" - because that machine (Brother 1500) is really easy to stitch back and forth with, at speed. The spacing of the rows and the angle of the rows are a couple of variables to play around with - as well as thread weight and thread colour. And leaving areas unquilted.

"The moon belongs to everyone"

It's coming along - Still needs more "drifts" of quilting, in shades of pale grey -Looking for a background, and learning about the importance of contrast in tone -