something to keep in mind, if your quilt appraises for a very high amount you may have to increase your homeowners insurance. For a raffle quilt the winner would have to pay taxes on that amount. Our guild just had a quilt appraised and it is worth (?) $14,000.00. Who would pay that?

I'd love to enter a judged show - except that I won't do a hand sewn binding so I figure it would be a waste because of that.

However I don't know if there are any judged quilt shows in the state of SD other than the larger county fairs and the state fair.

A well done machine stitched binding is perfectly acceptable. Sharon Schambers only did binding by machine and she has taken BOS at Houston on numerous occasions. Are there published rules in your local show that only hand sewn bindings are acceptable?

Sorry, I just got the idea from what I've read on this board that machine binding was the kiss of death at judged shows. Not that they are not allowed, but the judge won't seriously look at a quilt that has one.

It does depend on the judge but machine stitched bindings are definitely acceptable in a judged show but they must be executed impeccably. I'm just not that good at finishing it by machine so I continue to do my show quilts with a binding that is machine stitched to the front of the quilt then wrapped around and hand stitched to the back using an invisible applique stitch.

Oh, that would be fun! I have some quilts my grandmother made. I do know when they were made (mid 1950's), but I'd be interested to see what an appraiser said since the fabrics look more like 30's to me. I never really thought about value on them since to me they are priceless but it would be interesting to see. My grandmother did all her quilts completely by hand and was a much better quilter than I could ever hope to be. Little tiny hand quilting stitches. OMG! I'd be blind after a couple of quilts.

I'm going to enter them in the Black Hills Quilt show in Rapid City first weekend in June. They have both judged and non judged categories.

first weekend in June? bummer, if it was a few weeks later I could stop in. DH and I are planning a trip out to the Hills for the RowXRow, since I've collected ones from all the participating shops on this half of the state. But that does not start until the first day of Summer. We've been in SD for almost 15 years, and have not made it out there yet.

Good luck at the show- will look forward to hearing how it goes.