Separate Novice and Advanced quilt judging categories?
 

We just finished up our county fair and an interesting question was brought up. “Would it be feasible to have a separate beginner category and an advanced category perhaps in the lap/throw quilt category?” We already have 3 separate age classes. The example given was if you have several quilts entered in one category, how does the beginner quilter compete against the advanced quilter in the same age class? The comment was “The beginner quilter will never win or get a ribbon”. How would you differentiate between a beginner quilter and an advanced quilter? By the number of years involved with quilting? By the quality and workmanship? I have seen many wonderful works by beginning quilters and some not so great work by people who have quilted for years. Does the exhibitor decide which level they want to enter in? Would you then need a beginner and an advanced category for each type of quilt, (i.e. table runners, throw quilt, bed quilt, wallhanging, etc). Right now we have about 18 different categories and take in about 45-50 quilts total.

I want to give due diligence to the question so would like your thoughts about this. Thank you!

I think everyone's work should compete evenly within the age category, which I assume is to differentiate between young children, older children, and adults. Perhaps the beginning quilter will not get a ribbon on her first quilt (or perhaps she will, if the work is good enough), but she will not always be a beginner, and will have the opportunity to show her work again. 18 categories for 45-50 quilts is already a lot.

I've seen many shows with a "first quilts" category. Of course you have to depend on people's word.

Some people, however, are able to do amazing thing their first time through. Not me! But some people :)

I agree with Dunster. She said it very well. The only thing I might add, is that it seems that some people may want a ribbon for participating which could be an option. Similar though to the trophy for everyone idea, if that is how they want to go.

Sometimes I think this might be a good thing, although I wouldn’t know what to call it as I think there’s a huge section of the quilting population that would fall between “beginner” and “advanced” that wouldn’t know which category to enter.

There is one person who enters 1-2 quilts in each of several divisions in our fair every year. She is extremely talented and her quilts are beautiful (predominately appliqué). They truly belong in major shows, they’re that good. She has won Best of Show on several occasions and typically wins 4-6 first and/or second place ribbons every year. I’ve given up entering in the fair because I know if she enters, she’s the one who will take the majority of the ribbons. Don’t get me wrong, she absolutely deserves them. I feel that I have no chance at all if she enters because her quilts are so exceptional, so I’ve given up on entering anymore. I am far from a beginner and consider myself fairly advanced, but I may never in my lifetime be as advanced as she is.

I wouldn't divide categories up by ability levels. The way a novice competes with a more experienced quilter is to make quilts and get better at their skills.

I'm not in the 'trophy for everyone' camp. :D

Oh... sad you gave up! I'm sure you have many wonderful quilts that others would love to see. Don't enter to win first place, enter to share your work and inspire others.

I agree to enter not just a ribbon in mind! When I go to quilt shoes I love looking at the various types and levels of workmanship. It’s a wonderful experience to see what everyone can accomplish. and for myself I don’t usually agree with the judges choices anyway.

Both our fair and guild shows do have beginner bed quilt categories--has to have been quilting 2 or fewer years. The Fair also has age categories and also one that is completely done by the entrant. Our guild has tried several different categories--recently we decided to just go by method (except for the mini's, the beginner and the jr.--only jr. get a participation ribbon.)

Do I understand that in your fair one quilter can enter more than one quilt in a category.

What judging system does your fair use.

One entry per category

American system (judged against each other)

Cindi's comment about the very advanced quilter winning all the ribbons makes me sad. Not just for those who aren't entering because they have no chance of winning, but also for the talented quilter who's satisfied being the big fish in a small pond.

The guild needs to find a way to encourage her to spread her wings and show her work at shows where the competition is at or above her level. Doing so will help her grow as an artist, and perhaps when she doesn't win any ribbons competing against "big time" quilters she might get an idea of how those who compete against her in the local show feel.

I believe that if you know your work is exceptional you should bow out of competing against less experienced and/or gifted quilters. It isn't fair to them and it isn't good for you.

The Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, UK has a Novice Category. ".. quilting for fewer than 3 years, made in the last two, not shown or exhibited before, quilter not to have any formal qualifications in textiles etc"

Many of them were well beyond my skills!!

MQX has an emerging entrant category and AQS Paducah has a "first time entrant" category. These can be for novice quilters but usually the entrants are their first foray into a major national show. While it is rare, novice quilters can win and win big. Back in 2015, Angela Petrocelli took several ribbons with her first quilt "Why Not". But I tend to agree with Dunster, you already have a lot of categories for 40 to 50 quilts.

Cindi, l'm also a very experienced sewist and quilter, and l feel as you do about entering shows, but for a different reason. My work is primarily done for charity and gifts, so l like to use what fabrics are handy, and spend my free time dreaming up the design and making it nice, but in a reasonable time frame. I have no desire to show for the " look what l can do" factor...guess l'm just not a competitor,lol.

Every quilt has its merit be it a beginner or the best in show at Houston. Not every quilt will earn an award even for a very experienced and talented quilter. We live in a time where so many believe everyone should win a prize that something is getting lost in the meaning of skills. Time effort and learning all go into making a quilt that will win in a showing.

I think there are ways. I know several guild shows that put different categories - one "Master" is for anyone who has won a ribbon before or received money for their work ie longarm quilter, teacher, seller, and a 2nd group "artisan" for the other quilters. This division keeps the ribbon winners competing against other ribbon winners. A non judged category and first time entrant are other good ideas.

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.

Hi Pagzz,

There were many very lovely (and quite fantastic!) quilts at the show. When I said I didn't find inspiration there, it is strictly a personal preference issue. I love reproduction applique quilts from the 1840-1880s. I did not go to the show expecting to see anything in this regard, as it is such a small niche, but I had hoped to see some grid work or channel quilting.

There were many equivalent quilting motifs from this early time period that can now be quilted free motion- feathers, wreaths, etc. Like I mentioned earlier, my quilting is "new", but my body is not, so I don't know whether I will have the physical capacity in my hands by the time I am ready to free motion.

I had hoped, however, to see some grid work, or channel quilting, or something similar that I could put into use at this stage of my ability. There were a few quilts that I saw that were walking foot quilted, but the ones I saw were very simply done. I may have missed some great ones, though!

Therefore, the heavily quilted free motion quilts did not "inspire me". I certainly don't begrudge anyone this amazing talent, but that was 95% of what was shown. This is the reason I do not plan to return in the future.

Happy threads!

I can't speak for local venues as it varies so much but pretty much all the national shows have separate categories and awards for machine quilted vs hand quilted, which is only right IMHO, they are two completely different art forms and I know, as I used to hand quilt and now I longarm quilt. Make no mistake, when it comes to longarm quilting for many of us the machine is not doing anything more than your domestic sewing machine, which is move the machine needle up and down to form a stitch. There are plenty of hand guided machine quilters (both stationary and movable) that don't use any computer to create the quilting, it is all the skill and talent of the person doing the quilting and many of them don't even have a stitch regulator or quilt without turning it on. I am not one of them, I always quilt in stitch regulated mode. All the stitch regulator does is time the needle up and down movement with the speed of the operator's movement.
AQS further segregates between stationary machine quilted (in a table and the quilter moves the fabric) or movable (aka rack mounted) machine quilted. Unfortunately some shows don't distinguish between hand guided and computer guided and I feel that is wrong, there should be separate categories for computer guided quilting in the interest of complete disclosure for people viewing the quilts. I can recall how when I first started and go to shows and see CG quilting (not knowing it was CG) and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they got every motif exactly the same. Now I can usually tell the difference between CG and HG quilting from sight. But many can't. I was once standing by one of my quilts at a show and two ladies were commenting that it must be computer guided and I piped up and said, no it is all hand guided.

I agree. But to me if a quilt (blanket) can't be used as quilts were intended, it should be in another category of it's own, maybe in the Arts section, not quilting. Around here the only ones that win anything anymore are the art quilts. So now we are getting fewer real quilts every year. This year the fair was literally begging for quilts, with little results. Like you say,"Why Bother" as traditional quilters never win. I'm not in favor of any "Participation" anything. Either you win or you don't. We have on guild with almost 300 members, and two other guilds within 20 miles of the fairgrounds. Plus tons of guilds in cities/towns very close and do enter as well. Yet because of the failure of the Fair Board to separate, and judging, they are just not getting entries. I expect the "quilt"section to be eliminated in a couple of years at the rate they are going. About 10 yrs ago they filled an entire bldg, now, barely 1/4 of that same bldg.

several have mentioned disappointment regarding the number of bed size quilts showing up in local shows/fairs. I have a thought on this as it's happening at my local guild show too. When discussed, we hear that more quilters who have been quilting for awhile have already made enough bed size quilts to cover all the beds they plan to cover. And with the expense of fabrics (and paying for quilting as many do), making more bed size quilts for the sake of bed size quilts isn't practical--that instead lap quilts, wallhanging, and art quilts allow the quilter to continue to stretch their creativity and quilt.

I agree. That’s pretty much all I make. I want them to be used, not just looked at!

I believe it is unfair for a quilter to enter more than one quilt in a category. If allowed, I believe those involved in the program should petition the organizers to change the policy.

The only show in which any of my quilts have been entered is a our LQS fundraiser for the food bank. There is no judging; viewers cast votes with donations. There are First Quilt and Viewers Choice categories, but mostly people vote for friends and relatives. It is all for a good cause, so who really cares? Judged shows raise any number if questions to me. Just a few:

Should quilts completed totally by the maker be judged jointly with those professionally quilted?
How is true free motion quilting distinguished from computer governed “free motion quilting”?
What about computer directed embroidery?
What about digital files for custom quilting particular patterns such as Amazon Star?

The bottom line—at what point are we realistically rewarding not the expertise of the individual quilter but the monetary resources at their disposal?

I use a domestic sewing machine or my mid-arm Sweet Sixteen to free motion quilt my quilts. It takes a lot of skill to do this, the machine is simply making the needle go up and down-- I control the speed of the machine, the speed at which I move the quilt through it (which controls the stitch size) and I control the designs as well. I'm not sure why you are equating machine quilting with lack of skill unless you are of the mistaken opinion that fmq is done by computer.

rob

I"m totally not in the trophy for everyone camp! If you give everyone a trophy, then they become meaningless. I agree with SBG. Competing with those who are better than you are gives you something to strive for. I know this because I started out showing cars about 15 years ago without a clue. I made friends with some people who had a lot of experience at it and learned from them. Now, when I win (and beat out some of the big boys) I'm very proud of my trophies because they show how far I've come.

You said that you had 18 categories and are taking in 45 - 50 quilts. That means each category averages less than 3 quilts. If you want to give more people a ribbon, you could give 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each category.