We are a VERY small guild but have a show every 2 years. (40 members) A new member from a huge guild in the North recently joined and is very enthused and we love that. She stated that in their quilt shows, it is up to the judge if no quilts are to her liking that she doesn't award a 1st place prize.

Most of us feel that it is our show, our money and if the judge wants the work, she will award all the ribbons we want. We are not saying we are at the level of a Houston or Paducah, we just want to have our own little show and award ribbons for the "best" of what we turn in.

FYI--Some of our members have entered quilts in juried shows and won ribbons so even tho we are small, we are not bad workers.

Do other guilds do it our way or the new members way? Thoughts please.

Thank you, Kathy

A "professional" judge usually has the option of not awarding a ribbon if the workmanship doesn't get enough positive checks. A part of the reason is that it is their reputation for recognizing only quality workmanship-they have a criteria to follow. I'm not necessarily agreeing with not awarding all ribbons in every category, just trying to clarify the reason. :) BTW, I am not a judge so there might be other reasons--I just work with my guild for our quilt show and have talked with the judges we have invited.

the guild I started in Or, was 8 members when we gave our first show, we had quilts entered for judgeing and some for not to be judged. we gave out ribbions for each catagory we decided on, it is your guild set up what and how you want things done, and go for it, have fun!!

Tell her "how nice for them" and go on doing what you've always done.

I am with Scissor Queen all of the way! Your guild--your rules :-)

majority rules you choose a judge that respects your demorcratic wishes---and yes other groups will be different

I also think all the ribbons should be awarded in a quilt show. However, I have noticed that in the county fair there are sometimes categories with only one or two quilts entered, and in those cases there may not be a first place award. I think this is proper if the quality of the quilts is not at the same level as the quality of the quilts getting ribbons in the other categories.

I agree with this. At our last guild quilt show my quilt was the only one entered in one of the categories. I thought it was an "automatic" ribbon, but not so. The judge held it to the same judging criteria as the other quilts in the other categories. I got the blue ribbon, but she made it clear to me (after the judging was completed and I asked her for her honest opinion) that my quilt did earn the blue ribbon. She had made some "constructive criticism" comments about my machine quilting, which I have taken to heart. She also said "...at a larger show the quality of the machine quilting would have been judged more negatively". So, they do take all things into consideration, I think...at least that very experienced quilt judge does.