Sad to say but I don't think there is a solution for this problem. It happens in our show every show. There is a first time category in which a first time ribbon in awarded, there is also a participation ribbon for everyone in the show. Those ribbons don't "hang" they are given in the judge's review packet. Some people are so desperate for a ribbon, they fudge. In our show, we have truly professional level quilters. They will win. There is just no true competition between someone who have been quilting for years and someone who just started. I'm somewhere in between. So for me, it is simple participation and seeing my quilts hang that is enjoyment.

I agree with this statement too. It made me feel sad. I'm a new quilter, with only one pieced quilt completed so far, and one done with my embroidery machine. I don't know if I have the guts to enter anything in a show at this point, but I've attended a couple of quilt shows, and I loved looking at the different variations quilters have completed, and the creativity that they demonstrate. I haven't necessarily found that the show winner was a quilt that I particularly liked either, from a personal perspective. I think of quilting as a form of art, and art appreciation is very personal IMHO.

This thread has good timing. I just went to the annual quilt show in Plano, Tx and had already decided it will be my last show to even visit. I am new to quilting, but it was extremely easy to see that every single ribbon in every single category went to a heavily quilted free motion quilt. There was even a category for "first quilt show quilt" and the top two placings went to, you guessed it, heavily quilted free motion quilts.

For me, there is no "inspiration" there, as I am an older newbie and will never do free motion quilting. What I did see, however, was if you don't heavily free motion, don't bother to enter a show. The venue where the show was held was ringed by vendors selling sewing machines at $10,000 up, along with numerous long arm quilting machines.

There was no place for those without a huge budget anywhere at the this show. Far from being inspirational, it came across to me as "big dogs only".

I am sorry you feel that way LadyAg. That was my guild show and I was working admissions so I may have crossed your path.

I want to make 3 points.

First if someone wants to ribbon at a show that is one discussion. This show you reference is put on by a guild in the Dallas Metroplex area with a lot of talented quilters. This area has lots of quilters and shops...I think we had 22 different quilt shops that sold tickets to the show. That is tough competition.

Second there was another recent thread on this forum where someone pointed out all the famous free motion quilters who just use their domestic machine to quilt on...it can definitely be done.

Third I had two quilts in the show and the one in the modern category was critiqued for having "traditional" quilting which was a valid point. If I had just done straight line quilting it would have been judged higher presumably.

Perhaps there should be a thread on how to win ribbons but there is more to shows than that... lately I have seen people lamenting that heavily quilted wins...but you can also say that most best of show quilts are heavily appliqued.

Our fair has two divisions, adult and youth. Seems fair to me. Not all beginners do poor work and not all experienced do goof work. We used to have several sub-catagories and many, including me would have a quilt in each one. Now it has been changed to two-hand worked and machine worked. It's a bit disappointing to me, but I see the point if you are only getting 1-2 entries in each sub-cat. The new way gives more competition. On a side note- being a superintendent or committee member for competition is a thankless job.

Sorry, for my second follow up, but what kind of quilting do you like? you say you will never do "free motion" do you do straight lines or in the ditch? you went to a show with 300 quilts and didn't feel inspired by any of them so what do you like? and why are you sure you will never venture further?

I don't know how much experience you have with shows but the vendors around the room pay the guild to be at the show. That is one of the ways to make money, then admission charges and the raffle quilt tickets. This enables the guild to hire speakers and teachers for our meetings. We charge $30 for a year's membership. Admission to the show is free if you volunteer for 4 hours otherwise it is $10. So respectively, no it isn't "big dogs only" Our guild is made up of women and men with various levels of talent and lots of dedication to making the quilt show a success

Pagzz--I think you make a good point that it seems to me (a basically non-appliquer) that all the winning quilts are heavily appliqued! guess quilt judging is like many things--trends come and go.

One thought I had following this thread is that we aren't really separating local smaller guild shows and county fairs from the larger, metro or regional shows and state fairs. the smaller shows typically don't get the number of entries that justify having a wide variety of classes, separating the beginner vs. master, type of piecing, type of quilting. The larger shows do get the number of quilts and often do separate the categories out better.

And the concern that only those quilts that are heavily quilted can win,well, the trend is toward custom quilting--but I've seen some hand quilted entries that are extremely heavily quilted, too.

Frankly, I would like to see my local guild do away with ribbons at our show or just maybe have a vote for "my favorite quilt". It would settle a lot of discussion every year and deal with the "politics" every show regardless of size, seems to encounter.

Being a "traditional" quilter, I hope there are divisions between hand quilted and machine quilted. I have seen some beautiful machine quilting but it makes me sad to go to a quilt show and see that so many have given up hand quilting. I see a huge difference between letting a machine create the stitching (either embroidery or quilting) as compared to what has taken hours of hand work and the skill required to do it well. Are we judging the finished product or the skill required? As to beginner/skilled and the original question. It seems to me that you probably have plenty of divisions with that many entries. The "first time" quilt is probably enough to separate and could be from the person who is now a skilled quilter. You could end up with beginner projects in every age division!

What I don't agree with at our fair is that long arm and FMQ on a domestic are all judged as one category. If you don't do the quilting part of a quilt yourself, you are docked points. I'm OK with that but I don't think quilts that are long arm quilted with a computer program should be in a different category than someone who has quilted on a domestic machine. Using a computer generated program shouldn't be in the same category as someone who is creating the quilting themselves. Nothing against long armed quilts, only if the quilting is done by a machine doing the work and not a person when it comes to how they are judged.