The one in which I win a ribbon

I posted about my Off Kilter quilt and mentioned that I entered a show and then never provided any follow up! Those of you who follow my Instagram have already seen these, but I think of this blog as my quilting journal. So here's the story of my first ribbon win!

I was inspired to actually enter this quilt into a show when we had a talk at Philly Modern Quilt Guild by Jessica Skultety. She talked all about her experiences entering shows and encouraged us all to try. You've got to start somewhere right?

I believe at the time that this quilt was on my design wall. And I've told the story of how it was created in my last post. It started with Sarah Bond's pattern Tiger Melon Tiger Moon. (her patterns are class based - you can't purchase them as paper patterns yet).  And I combined it with Sew Kind of Wonderful's Metro Twist.  So I was looking at this quilt and thinking - if I quilt this well, I can actually enter this one!

My guild has had exhibits at Mancuso's Pennsylvania National Quilt Exhibit for the past few years so I was familiar with the show and began the process of entering.  One of my guild friends had entered also. She received her notice of acceptance and posted on social media. I was on vacation for the week and because they send their notices via postal mail, I had to wait almost a whole week to find out that I was accepted! I was shocked and thrilled!

The day of the show, a lot of my friends were at the show because our guild had another exhibit and one of our members (Sarah Bond again!) was giving a lecture. They all knew first thing that morning that I had gotten the ribbon. One had posted on FB teasing me. However, I was at work and had no idea anything had happened. I texted my good friend Denise asking her to go find my quilt. She sent me back a picture of just my quilt and says "do you want to see it's neighbor?". I replied yes, not even understanding why I'd want to see the quilt hanging next to it. And she sent me the ribbon!!

Of course I called her right away and we squealed like teenage girls at a concert! I wasn't able to see the quilt myself until the weekend. But the whole family came and we had a great time. I tried to get a picture of me with the kids and my quilt. Pretty much all of them came out looking like this.

I finally banished them and got the required photo of artist with quilt.

There were so many amazing quilts there. I put photos of a bunch of my favorites on my instagram feed if you want to see some really inspiring work. I was so honored to hang with many of these quilts. We'll see where this leads!