This hits a nerve also. What about all those quilts that were tied? Did they cheat? I never machine quilted until after I retired. I will never be a hand quilter for the simple reasons that 1: I want to finish a quilt, and 2: it would hurt my hands too much. But, I do admire the beautiful hand quilted quilts and all the hours spent on it.

When I was a kid, we "tied" the quilts.

Beth, I bet you wished you had thought of the power tools come back when that guy said that to you. I just told my DH about your post. He agreed with you about the power tools.

Also, our ancestors used what was available. If they had a sewing machine, they used it. If they would have had access to rotary cutters, they would have used them too.

I also never heard of binding a quilt until after I retired. When did binding become popular? We used to just hem quilts.

I imagine every quilt show has their rules. I have been to them and read the cards that tell who pieced them and who quilted them. Sometimes it was the same person but most of the time it was different people. The quilts were beautiful no matter who quilted them.

I think of quilting as an art and art is seldom perfect. It also falls into the category that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Even though I just wrote all that, I'm still my worse critic - but no one else had better criticize my work! Them's "fighten" words! LOL

In this area you can enter your quilt but you have to show on your entry label that is was pieced by ........ and quilted by.......... I see that a lot and it is nice that credit is given to the deserving person.

Most county fairs have relaxed rules for entries. If they were too rigid there would be nothing entered. I am in charge of the quilts at our local fair. The categories are hand quilted, hand pieced. Hand pieced, machine quilted. Machine pieced, hand quilted. A tied quilt is considered hand quilted, they never win top prize though. A winner is selected from each category by size within that category. Multiple names can be on one entry, the judges never see the entry sheet though.

Wow, a lot of information. I love to look at quilts, I don't care who did what, they all look like works of art to me. If I were a "judge" maybe I would look at them differently. But I am just too happy to see "what I think is pure magic" happening with material and thread (no matter how people choose to do it).

At our fair there are different categories, such as Hand Quilted, machine quilted, pieced by one person and quilted by another, etc. As stated before, credit should be given for who did what.

No it is not cheating. You can win having the top quilted by someone else but like everyone said each show has its own rules but in my opinion all credits should go to the people invloved. I will never show a quilt that has been long arm quilted by someone else without giving that person full credit...it is just not right.

Being that you are the in-charge person at your Fair, then it's time to have a new class for those Hand Tied Quilts to compete with each other. Every Fair here has at least one tied class ... sometimes more, allowing for different sizes or types of quilts. Another class that I like to see is "at least 50 different fabrics". The frustration comes when I have to decide which class for a quilt to be entered into! :D (aside from interpreting the "rules"!:))

I don't make the entry rules. The State Fair board does that and the county and district fairs follow those rules. I make sure all the quilts are entered in the right category, all the paperwork is filled out, each entry gets a number, the quilts are kept clean and displayed properly, the judges are not kept waiting and keep records or which quilt wins what ribbon. It's all volunteer work.

Here's my 2 cents. I love to look at the quilts at a show and just admire. If there's something that speaks to me, I'd like to know who to ask-so giving credit is important. Some people look at shows to find a LAQ that can quilt a style compatible to their piecing and style. I would like to know how the classes were determined: a list posted somewhere conspicuous would be nice-maybe in the show brochere. And I'd like to know which class each quilt is in: maybe on the description at each quilt.

I think professional quilting shouldn't compete with amateur quilting. So if it's professionally quilted I think it should be entered in a professional catagory.

As to "cheating", if they follow the rules of that show, it's not cheating.

I've never been to a show or fair where professionally quilted quilts are entered in the same category as amateur quilted quilts. I am the Superintendent for the fair in my county. There's a whole section for professionally quilted quilts and we're going to expand that section this year.

The tag on the quilt has the section number and the class number. To find out what those numbers mean you just need a fair booklet that's available at several places in town.