Tips and Tricks for Better Machine Quilting

After writing the last blog post about how judges choose the winning quilts, it occurred to me that there was something else I could have shared about judges that might be of interest to quilters. So, I’m going to do that now in a VERY brief post.

There is strange phenomenon out there amongst quilters who enter their quilts in competitions, ESPECIALLY when they are new to the competition world. What I’m referring to, and I have personally felt this way myself, is that when quilters enter a quilt in a competition, and they get comments back from a judge, they tend to take those comments too personally. This can lead to many strange emotions such as anger, incredulity, bitterness, embarrassment, etc.

Have you ever been to a quilt show and looked at some of the quilts with ribbons on them and wondered, “Why does this quilt have a ribbon and that one doesn’t?” Well, I think most of us have. What goes on in the “judging room” is a big mystery to many quilters. Since I’ve been in a lot of judging rooms, both as a judge and as an aide, I’m going to try to de-mystify this issue for you.

This week I have a very special "Guest Blogger"; Kristen Vierra. Kris is a national and international award winning quilter from Lincoln, Nebraska. Her quilts have been featured in numerous magazines and displayed at quilt shows throughout the country. Kris' awards include thePfaff Master Award for Machine Artistry, BOS at NW Quilting Expo, and a number of best long arm quilting awards; several at AQS shows. She has a full-time longarm quilting business and enjoys teaching quilting and sharing her love of all things quilts.

I know you're going to love reading this blog from Kris, as it pertains to each and every one of us.  So, without further ado, here is Kris' blog...

Have you ever noticed that quilt show judges sometimes get a bad rap? For some reason, many quilters have a preconceived notion that all quilt show judges are MEAN! Well, I’m here to dispel that notion and have an in depth discussion about quilt show judging and the people behind the scenes.

This blog post is going to be a bit out of the ordinary, but after posting some photos of a particular quilt on Facebook, I got so many nice comments that I decided to tell the history of this quilt because it’s a story I love to tell!

The name of this quilt is “I’m Not from Baltimore, Bakersfield Edition”, and here is its story...