Local quilt show: observations

Choices -- and the sheer numbers of them! -- are possibly the reason why quilting appeals to so many different tastes among quilters. When I first began quilting about 25 years ago , I was a very traditional quilter, machine piecing and hand quilting traditional patterns (and bless Georgia Bonesteel for getting me started!). As time went on, I began experimenting with different techniques and love the way that experimenting can broaden the scope of what I do. :) I know that's not for everyone; I'm very lucky that I can take classes (and that I *want* to do so) to find out whether I like this or that technique. I've discovered that, while I love hand quilting for its relaxing, contemplative "feel", I also love machine quilting for its sheer fun, different "look" and the ability to get baby quilts done for my grandchildren before they head off to college.

I no longer machine piece and hand quilt everything. Now I machine piece, hand piece, machine appliqué -- and am beginning to enjoy hand appliqué after several attempts to do so! I love that variety. I love that we have choices.

Some times it looks to me like they've been quilted from the back!

Cindy

1. If I didn't do it, all myself, I wouldn't call it, "My Quilt".
2. If I paid to have it quilted, I wouldn't enter it into a show.

****************** Using that rational, where do you stop? Do you weave your own cloth? Dye it? Screen print it? Come up wit your own design not based on a basic block? My friend sometimes free motion quilts my tops. That's not a skill I possess and I'm fine with that. But I don't pay her, so can I enter it in a show?

You _don't_ do it all "yourself". None of us do. No man is an island, remember?

Cindy

We're getting ready for our annual quilt show. We've had discussions about "professional vs non-professional" quilting. No one can agree on what constitutes "professional". I have a friend who, on occasion, has quilted a top for people and been paid a nominal fee. Her name belongs with "quilted by" on the form, but it doesn't make her a professional quilter.

Frankly, I would rather see a distinction between long arm and other forms of machine quilting. I don't think they're comparable. You can't stipple well on a long arm but to me, nothing beats a long arm for intricate feathers. They both are equally valuable and pleasing.

I have seen some quilts that I just thought were breathtaking and would be in the process of hunting down the pattern and the fabrics to make one like it and suddenly realized that it was the _quilting_ that made it fabulous. I can't duplicate that.

We hire a qualified judge for our show. We don't allow people to enter quilts that they don't want judged. Which I think is a real shame. I have quilts that I would enter, but I don't care to have them judged. I just don't think that competition brings out the best in people. And it's not that I don't think my quilts are "good" enough. I've entered quilts 3 times and I've always won ribbons. I just don't like competition. It's subjective and all the judges I've worked with have always had biases, for or against a particular form of quilting or another. I know that I certainly would. I would always have a soft spot for particular kinds of quilts.

I love quilts shows. Every one I've ever been to, I've learned something.

Cindy

i live on an island but i dont grown cotton, dont think anyone does, the climate isnt right for that. how far north/south of the equator does cotton grow best i wonder. i like those fluffy little white cotton bolls, so cute arent they. i'm sure they grow industrial hemp somewhere on this island. i read that makes nice fabric. j.

"teleflora" wrote... Using that rational, where do you stop? Do you weave your own cloth? Dye it? Screen print it? Come up wit your own design not based on a basic block? My friend sometimes free motion quilts my tops. That's not a skill I possess and I'm fine with that. But I don't pay her, so can I enter it in a show?

You _don't_ do it all "yourself". None of us do. No man is an island, remember? Cindy

"John" wrote... I can understand the limitations of money into the overall equation. But, I do all of the quilting on all of my quilts myself; with a machine, and proudly so.

1. If I didn't do it, all myself, I wouldn't call it, "My Quilt".
2. If I paid to have it quilted, I wouldn't enter it into a show.

******************

Actually I am building myself a loom as I have found a source for wool locally. I already have a spinning wheel so I may be able to get into it sooner than I thought. You plug into whatever level you choose. Whatever satisfies your sense of control and what you want to get out of it. There is a guy who weaves rugs out of cast off levis' here in town and he doesn't pay for any of it. He collects them from a vast network of people he knows locally and they give him all their old clothes, that he turns into rag stock strips and then weaves that into rag rugs. Pretty resourceful, and way more in control of the product line than I am.

John

Interestingly, Cindy, that IS a time worn style I remember reading about in a quilting magazine back in the day. The quilter would use a large chintz (or other) pattern as backing and quilt around the flowers and such.I cannot recall exactly when and where this was popular, but it seems to me that it was an English trend in the late 19th - early 20th Century. If anyone has info on this, I'd love to read it again.

PAT

I've done that when I had a decorative thread that didn't work well in the sewing machine needle, so I put it on the bobbin and worked from the back. I had done SITD on the front, so I knew the areas where I wanted to do the free-motion. I also did a quilt once where I wanted to mark a design on some of the blocks, but it was dark fabric and difficult to see the marks. Again I did SITD from the top so I knew the areas where I wanted the design, marked the design and stitched from the back.

Julia > Interestingly, Cindy, that IS a time worn style I remember reading about in

Sandy: There is a quilting pattern that has been popular many years that takes the design right across the quilt, regardless of the seams and blocks. IT is often called Baptist Fan or just plain Fan and was used widely in the South in the 1930s.

I am lucky to have a hand made quilt with the Baptist Fan in Oklahoma, about

1930. One rarely sees that pattern in machine quilting, but I do have a large WH that was domestic machine quilted with Baptist Fan by another Virginia quiltmaker. Both quilts are pretty and I'd be proud to have made either one, but I didn't.

Pat in VA/USA

Yes, that is a lovely way to add the special thread, Julia. Isn't that technique called "Bobbin Work?" I like it and want to try it too. That is not what I meant though. The style I mentioned quilts ONLY from the back, relying on the print of the backing fabric for the "pattern" and using regular thread top and bobbin. I don't have time to find that magazine .... I'm still hunting for my car key!! If I ever come across the magazine I will add to this subject. Pat in Virginia

Cotton is grown in Australia Jeanne. We saw a crop that was roughly in the centre of New South Wales. Those fluffy balls are really cute ( I even borrowed a couple )

Dee in Oz

i figured it was grown somewhere south of the equator just didnt know where. except fairly sure its sure not grown in nz. watch someone prove me wrong, oh well. most if not all of NSW is closer to the equator than anywhere in nz tho. cant recall off the top of my head what the latitude of northern tip of nz or the southern most part of NSW. borrowed, eh. naughty girl. j.

"Dee in Oz" wrote... Cotton is grown in Australia Jeanne. We saw a crop that was roughly in the centre of New South Wales. Those fluffy balls are really cute ( I even borrowed a couple ) Dee in Oz

"J*" wrote...

But the converse of that argument is, "I made a design choice by choosing one of many quilts for sale at Wallmart, buying the quilt and I now I want to enter it in the show". (A blue light special in creativity in Isle 3) We all make choices and plug into the process at the levels we feel comfortable. If you like doing it one way, then go ahead and do it. Just don't expect me to jump up and down and cheer, when I see it, if it doesn't meet my choices of excellence. If you don't jump up and down over my choices, I am ok with that too. There are plenty of options for everybody to find some level of comfort with their chosen "Art". Well, maybe, not the person who chose the Wallmart option. That persons artistic choice, probably revolved around a particular price point. I guess that could be considered an artistic choice, in some circles, though.

John

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:40:57 -0500, John wrote (in article ):

Actually, I've always thought all over patterns were quite common in handquilted quilts. Not an allover meander like you see with machine quilting, but all over crosshatch. And the Baptist Fan pattern is most definitely an allover pattern.

Maureen

Keep on believin'! That's W-mart. ;-) Is there anyone who doesn't know gitterdun came from Larry the Cable Guy (and that's *all* I know about him, cuz they played the silly line to death in promos. Thank heaven for the world's greatest invention - the "mute" button.)

Doc Who long ago gave up on claiming credit for anything, 'cuz in all likelyhood someone somewhere came up with it before. Woody Gurthrie was once asked how he felt about someone "stealing" his work. His reply was something like, "He stole it from me but that's ok - I steal from everybody!" I mentioned on this group a few months ago that I was collecting quotes by Elbert Hubbard. I read very recently that many of his quotations are coming into question because apparently he had a habit of claiming anything he read that he agreed with as his own, or would change just a single word and then claim it.

"I hate quotations." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (allegedly, anyway)

Pardon my ignorance (never fear, I brought enough for everyone, and there's more than enough to go around!) [Hey, can I claim that one?

8^P ] but theoretically, if you SITD by hand, wouldn't your needle go *between* all the layers in the top?

No, wait, I guess just the seams where the 1/4" (sorry - the correct term eludes me at the moment) is pressed back against the piece it belongs to. The tricky part would be intersections of several pieces/ patches, but wouldn't a lot of that be cut away to prevent bulging?

Doc

Hi Cindy,

In a local show here, you can enter any quilt, and there's a box on the entry form. If you check the box, your quilt is eligible to win, but it will be judged. No judging - no prizes, but you can still show it off, get comments/feedback (from viewers) and exposure.

Lets keep these stores sorted, John, the "blue light" belongs to KMart, not Walmart!

Mickie

the converse of that argument is, "I made a design choice by choosing one of many quilts for sale at Wallmart, buying the quilt and I now I want to enter it in the show". (A blue light special in creativity in Isle 3) John

You also said

And I responded in kind for the same reasons. No biggie. I'm not going to go into a lot of personal detail about myself for privacy reasons.

That's what you said. That's what I had to go on. I believed you and took you at face value. Now you add

and all that other life experience to the mix. How am I or anyone supposed to know that? We're not mind readers!

I could have sworn it was the other way around, and I did.

I have no reason to question the examples they cited as being included in traditional quilting. We weren't talking about *just* overall random quilting; we were also talking about quilting across the seams in general. As a debater, you know that you cannot prove a negative, and that is exactly what you are trying to do.

LOL! JOHN! I've been trying to do that for the last two posts, but you just won't let it go!

If it's just a matter of your having to have the last word... fine! Just reply, "Last word." and you have it!

Doc