It is a minor bone of contention that my hubby has not been to any quilt shows with me. In his defense, he does go to fabric stores with me and supports me in my desires to cut up said fabric. But to be honest, I have other friends who have never been to a quilt show with me either and I don't hold it against them.
My son has a good eye and can draw, he would go to shows with me and point out things he liked, a lot of which was applique which I don't do... but he would remark on color choices or 3D effects and other things of interest to him.
A number of years back I made an Ugly Tie quilt. I collected tons of old ties, particularly favoring big bold 1970s ties with colors and textures. Mostly I bought them in bags by the pound at the thrift stores. Took them home, gutted them and washed them. Oh my... ties are dirty, or at least rejected thrift store ones are! I dumped all the cleaned and gutted ties into a black plastic garbage bag, swirled them around a bit and then took a stack of brown paper lunch bags and without looking at what I grabbed, took 10 ties out of the big bag into each paper bag. Then I sat down to make a crazy quilt and took whatever I had in that bag and made a block out of it. The size of the quilt was determined by a crazy piece of polyester double knit that had a huge jaguar scenic print on the back, I do love my crazy backs and this was going to be tacked down so didn't matter that it was largely impenetrable. Anyway, the ladies in the quilt guild were rather appalled when I did submit it for the guild show, but I can tell you it was a hit with the male visitors. Saw a number of them pointing out bits and pieces (maybe some of the company logo ties like Boeing), and my son loved that quilt even though the backing meant it always would slide off the bed.