My quilt guild has a show coming up, and I've entered 2 quilts to be judged. I'm a newbie, and this is my first show. Does anyone have any tips for the final preparation of my quilts for the show? I've already heard of a few things:

--- judges really don't like to see any thread ends or ravelings
--- remove all pencil/ink marks used for quilting
--- block or square up the quilt; someone said the first thing the judges do is make sure a quilt it square.

Anything else?

Take a sticky roller to it and make sure there are no stray hairs or any thing on it.

Your bindings should be full, and the same width on both sides - your hand stitching on the back should just cover the seam line. Stitch closed the corners and the corners should be square.

I'm way too new to help you....haven't even been to a show yet but just wanted to say GOOD LUCK!

Take special care with the binding. It is normally the last thing we do and we tend to do it quickly, sometimes even on the way to the show! Judges are very particular about mitered corners, they like them but they have to be perfect. They can make or break a quilt. I hope you have fun with your quilt and good luck.

Thanks for the tips. I went out and got a lint roller, so I will be sure to use it before packing up my quilts for the show. All I have left to do is sew my label on the 2nd quilt ... .and then cover up the labels?!

Guess I must have done something right! 2 Blue ribbons!

AWESOME!! Can we see photos?

Congratulations! How wonderful on your first event!

Sure! (Sorry for the glare on the 1st photo)

OMGosh.....congrat!!! Those are beautiful quilts and the judges obviously agreed :D How exciting!!

Cathy they are both amazing quilts!!!! I am curious, are they hand or machine quilted??

Very impressive - they do not look like the work of a newbie at all.

Congrats! They are beautiful.

Oh Wow - I don't know how I missed Pinwheels on Point yesterday. Gus and I folded the Log Cabin Sampler (we helped with the take-down of the show). It is quite lovely.

Cheers, K

Love both of them, but especially love the pinwheels on point. lovely quilt. congrats!

Machine. The log cabin quilt is a king size. I did it in 2 ft x 2 ft sections, quilt-as-you-go, and then joined them with the (mostly red) sashing. Some straight-line stitching with my walking foot, and some FMQ.

The other one is 54" square. Mostly FMQ. The real fun part of this one was piecing the chain link border, as the pieces were very small -- each link of the chain was 4" square, with 16 1" blocks.

How neat! I'll have to look for you at the next group meeting -- I saw your photo on your blog ... so you cannot hide :-)

Unfortunately Cub Scouts meets at the same time as the guild, so it is likely that I won't make it to another meeting until May since I'm both Den Leader for Webelos I and Assistant Cub Master... a little hard to skip those meetings.

Cheers, K

Congrats! We just had our Bi-Annual quilt show and I helped with the folding after the judging and color/workmanship and binding are the things that go into a prize winning quilt - which is why I will probably never have one - I hate doing binding; therefore, i'm not very good at it!~i need a one on one class for machine quilting and binding! Dr. said this a.m. that 11/10 I have to have my rotary cuff (R) scoped, and if I have to have surgery, I heard it was 6 mos. recovery time!AAUUGGHH, what will I do with no right hand for that long time? Think positive, think positive, think positive, ........
t