Good question - I went to a quilt show last weekend and all the quilts looked good with the exception of the winners (which were fantastic incidentally), the winners deserved to win however I later found out that the winners were all very experienced quilters in fact they actually taught the type of techniques used.
In hindsight I think it was sad that beginners to quilting and the less experienced were up against teachers as they really didn't stand a chance in the judging. To my mind there should really have been classes dependent on skill level maybe? to make it fairer. Sort of puts less experienced people off when they know they don't stand a chance I should imagine. I did hear while at the show that the numbers were down on previous year quite considerably.
Maybe1day