I know they have things that they judge each quilt by.
What I am curious about...
is do they judge Wal Mart fabric against Quilt Shop fabrics.

i doubt if they have any idea where the fabric comes from- or care- they judge workmanship, technique- color/balance- binding ect... no one asks ...did you pay alot for this fabric???you can enter a quilt made completely from used clothing- a judge is not going to know that...it is the quilt itself - not where you buy your supplies.

That is a really interesting question!!
I can't wait to hear from judges on that one.

Carole

ckowl has the answer above.

I have seen the exact same fabric in both my Walmart and JoAnn's... the only difference was price...
Great question and ckcowl thanks for your wonderful reply.

Interesting topic; concise and clear.

i entered a quilt in the State fair a few years ago and place First!
most of the fabric i used was from walmart and the rest was from jo anns, so i dont think it makes a differance where the fabric comes from

It does not matter where the fabric comes from. This year I entered my quilts in 2 different places. Some of the fabs came from Wal-Mart, Joanns, Hancocks, and regular quilt shops. Not one of the judges ask where the fabs come from. CKCOWL is correct....they are supposed to judge on your workmanship, balance of colors/how well it works together, quality of hand stitches on bindings, either hand quilted or machine quilted and the number of starts and stops sometimes is judged also.

Please don't be afraid to enter judged contests. It is really interesting to hear the judges comments if you are able to. ;) Good luck if you are planning on entering. ;)

i think the thing judges are the most critical about is the binding. sharon schamers method of appling bind gives you that perfect finish. JUST DON'T USE TOO MUCH GLUE. her tut is on yahoo.

I would think this would only be an issue if inferior quality fabric were used and therefore affected the finish of the piece - in my experience, cheap fabric (and I mean the quality not the price) can lead to distorted seams, puckers in the quilting etc. If I'm making a quilt for a competition, I want to do the best job I'm capable of otherwise what is the point of investing my time and effort? Therefore, I wouldn't use sub-standard fabric.

One time I was looking at a quilting mag and one of the featured artist was talking about her quilt (which was some kind of a replica of something in a museum and it was HUGE! )She could not find the right color of fabric for a part of it, but she went to a quilt show or class and saw the perfect color. She found out that the fabric came from Walmart so she bought a few bolts. My thought is if she is making this quilt that was huge and so important to her and she uses Walmart fabric then I can too!!!!So I have no problem using Walmart fabric!