A question
 

If you gift a person with a beautiful quilt and then that person allows you to enter said quilt into a contest and the quilt gets a blue ribbon, who gets the ribbon?

The person that made the quilt.

You get the ribbon because the ribbon is recognition of your work; it is not recognition of current ownership. However, I see your dilemma. You can give the owner a picture of your quilt with the ribbon on it so that person can say she has a blue ribbon quilt. :-) That's my opinion but I've never dealt with this kind of an issue. Congratulations on having created such a great quilt!

I agree with ibex94. The quilter should receive the ribbon. My DD made a quilt for her sister-in-law's baby. Without DD knowing, SIL entered the quilt in our county fair. SIL took a picture of the quilt, framed it in a shadow box along with the blue ribbon it won and gave it to my daughter.

I entered a quilt in the local fair a friend made and I bought it from the guild silent auction. It won a 1st place ribbon. I gave the ribbon to her. She didn't know I entered it.

If the maker of the quilt is living, the ribbon should go to that person, you in this case. The the maker is deceased, the ribbon goes to the owner of the quilt. jMHO.

The maker gets the ribbon. The other person gets the quilt. I don't even know why the other person would get the ribbon?

This begs the question, is your giftee asking for the ribbon as though she believes it should be hers? If so, maybe a read thru these posts might 'educate' her on the appropriate protocol.

Jan in VA

In my local show you get a ribbon and a certificate. I give the certificate to the receiver and keep the ribbon.

It depends. There is a show by me where the owner can enter the quilt into the competition, rather than the quiltmaker. In that case, whoever entered the quilt in the competition is presented the ribbon.

If you are entering the quilt under your name, the ribbon should be yours to keep. If you get any kind of certificate recognizing your achievement, I would make a copy of that for her & give along with a photo of the quilt with a ribbon (whether anyone appears in the photo or not doesn't matter). An appraiser will still value her quilt at a higher amount because it won the award regardless of ribbon possession. Keep your own records since appraisals for your future quilts will also benefit.

That said, if you are asking this as a legal question rather than as a "what is commonly done/expected" question, depending on what is agreed to at the time the quilt is entered into the competition, there are potentially some instances where she would be legally entitled to keep the ribbon (though I think that's a pretty lousy thing to do). If you had already physically given the quilt to her & it wasn't agreed to that you could keep the ribbon then the question becomes whether the ribbon was presented because of the beauty of the quilt or your skill as a quiltmaker (yes, sadly, those legally can be two different things). I would re-read the rules of the competition & see if it says anything in there about whether a non-quilter can be awarded a prize for the quilt. If not, you have a stronger position, but it's still not a total slam dunk.

I really hope you keep the ribbon ... and if it were I, I would never gift that person so much as the leftover thread trimmings from the little bag next to my machine ever again after all this.