I made a quilt for my mom, or really for her cats. It is a little one she can put on the bed or couch so the cats sit on it instead of getting their fur and dust on the bedspread or upholstery. I wanted to try out free motion machine quilting, and I never had done it before, and really hadn't seen it done either, just looked at pictures in books and blogs. So you can guess it was anything but expert. I tried a stippling pattern, just putting the pedal to the floor and going for it. It ended up kind of stiff for a quilt, but totally fine for a cat mat.
charm square cat quilt
So it happens that her club (extension homemakers) puts on a quilt show as a fundraiser, and she took my quilt to the show. She didn't know she was entering it to be judged, but that is what ended up happening. She thought she was just "showing" it. When I heard, I laughed about it, but was a little horrified to think of that quilt being judged. It was entered under her name in a category called fall colors.
She sent me the judges's sheets today and they are pretty funny. Each judge made such an effort to state everything positively. One of them said the quilting made the texture "nubbly" and one wondered how it would have looked with black or grey thread. They all told me in kind words that I messed up on the binding because my mitered corners either weren't 45 degrees or not "closed" (so I think I was supposed to stitch the mitered corners down on the front and back.) One said the binding should be the same size on the front and the back. I never seem to manage that. One judge said the back was clever. The back is scrap pieced.
Anyway, I have to tease my mom for trying to pass my work off as her own. Not that she was. She doesn't quilt at all. :-)