My advice: Sew and enter, sew and enter, sew and enter. Or in your case, quilt and enter. Our local county fair is the best and I always enter everything that I have worked on during the previous year--our fair rules. And I always enter with the idea in mind of winning, and am disappointed when I don't win. We had so many good entries that I was just lost in the maze. Next year, though...... Congratulations, and I am like you, I would have felt real bad if someone had said something like that to me. Keep on keeping on, You go girl.....