I entered my first Fair! I saw an Instagram post that the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild posted about quilts being entered into the local County Fair. I had a couple days to decide, and I decided I would be able to finish one in time, and I had three I wanted to submit. I filled out the form, finished hand sewing the binding on the largest one, and dropped them off a week ago. I haven’t entered a quilt show or Fair or anything else before, so I was a little nervous about leaving them behind – they took so long to make and so much went into them – in the way of fabric, and time and trial and error and skill learning, and custom quilting! Judging was to be done the next day before the Fair opened.
Fast forward to Saturday and we went to the Fair, with Demolition Derby tickets for that night. We wanted to arrive a few hours early to look around the Fair at the activities and see some events, and go check on my quilts that I dropped off. We finally made it over to the room where the quilts were displayed and I saw Minecraft right away – with a tag with my name on it! I turned around to see my Gravity quilt, larger than life and bold in color – and I excitedly said “that’s mine!”. I took a photo of Minecraft on display, one with my son in front of Minecraft (it is his quilt…) and I waited for Gravity to be clear.
I walked over to my Gravity quilt and saw the white tag with my name on it again – and under the white tag was a red ribbon – 2nd Place for the Bed Size Quilts Class! I’m not exactly sure how the ribbons work with the Class being Bed Quilts and having 12 subclasses, but I was so surprised – and happy – to see a ribbon attached!
I was talking with the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild Rep that was there about how excited I was to have a ribbon, and my husband took my photo – I asked if I could hold up the ribbon while he took the photo – she allowed it only because it was my quilt. You are not allowed to touch the quilts! I didn’t touch any but my own. And then I said I had one more entered that I hadn’t found yet. I turned to the next section and I found my third quilt entry – the Small Quilts Class – and I entered it into the Embroidery category. Under the name tag on this quilt was a blue ribbon! I couldn’t believe it – two ribbons and one of them was blue! I received a First Place Blue Ribbon! I was hoping Gravity would get me some positive feedback, as I worked really hard on that one and I thought my piecing was pretty good, and the quilting is beautiful (Thank you Teresa Silva: Quilting Is My Bliss). I was not expecting a blue ribbon for the Embroidery Panel quilt – but I am so happy I received it!
We talked about how they had a National judge come in who gave some really specific feedback (looking forward to and a little scared of that). And we talked about the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild – my husband basically signed me up on the spot.
For now, I’m just very excited that my first quilt entry was a success. I did not expect to receive 2 ribbons but I am very happy. I am looking forward to having the quilts back home. And the ribbons.
