they always complain about the binding. in our small town our quilt show is the county fair. only 70 quilts this year and 15 were pannels for baby quilts. binding every time. so, I think it is like everyone said, they had to have something to say.

Was the judge from this town? Because if s/he is from somewhere else, then that would reflect the values of the somewhere else.

Also, how long did the judge have to judge the entire show? At two minutes per quilt, that would be 6 hours and 40 minutes. That's not a whole lot of time to get an overall view, evaluate design, colour choices, execution, etc, and then make a critique. Since nothing was said about anything but binding, I'd guess that was the only weak point.

In any case, binding is pretty easy to fix. It's easy enough to cut out a bunch of mug rug or potholder sized practise pieces and bind them to perfect your skill.

First congratulations for having courage to enter quilts in a show! If you are entering to have quilt judged then you should expect to have criticism. A local quilt show has a non-judging/exibition only catagory to enter quilts that you want to show off but do not want "judged". Perhaps next year you could suggest such a catagory for those of us who are too nervous to enter for real. Good luck next time.

sometimes Judges can be too judgemental!!

Bear in mind that quite possibly the judge was a buddy of the quilt show chair and not in the least qualified. One year at a local 4-H fair the Home Ec clubs hired a "friend" to judge. She gave a cheater cloth quilted pillow a purple ribbon and something less to a carefully pieced and quilted pillow that was not quite as "pretty at first glance"

batting in the binding? Do you mean just that the binding needs to be OVER the quilt bat? Surely you don't mean batting added to the binding?

Wow - I SO did not know the binding being a big deal when being judged. I haven't ever entered any though. And that might explain some of the quilt shows I've been to, when I see a quilt with the blue ribbon and I feel another in that category was way more qualified for the ribbon.

And just a thought - perhaps there was another quilt that was equally done and they had to come up with something to set the two apart? Maybe it came down to the binding.

I'm sure the quilt is a winner!

Binding can make or break a quilt in competition, no matter where it is. Learn to take Judge's Comments as critique, not criticism, and learn from it. You will only grow if you can do that.

Bindings is what all seem to go for. What else can they judge in an art quilt? Impossible to judge someones art. It is just too subjective. Traditional piecing is another thing. They can really pick those apart bit by bit.

I agree about Happy Endings. Its my edgings bible. I dont think it is being published any longer. Not sure. Its a keeper!