just_the_scraps_m'am

that's a GOOD question! i went to a local show this month & i,too, was surprised at how FEW {about one quarter} pieced quilts there were.
although i prefer TRADITIONAL ones, i do enjoy looking at the artistry in the others. the lack of quality workmanship was what bothered me the most.

gramquilter2

I wonder if it is where the quilt show is located. We don't see very many art quilts at shows here, and I love to make art quilts and I like to see what others are doing to make them.

Lynnie25

I am very much a traditional patchwork quilter and love seeing the hand pieced / hand quilted quilts in shows. These are getting less and less now with so many being machine quilted. I don't enter my quilts into any shows nowadays for this reason as the majority of mine are hand quilted.

However, I admire the talented artistic quilters and their masterpieces - we should embrace everyone who embarks on the quilting journey, no matter what medium they use.

Dee Dee

You are right. They seem to display quilts you would never see on a bed. Very artsy with sequins, toille and other decorations. They are beautiful to look at though.

Scissor Queen

I don't understand why everybody seems to think all quilts are judged in the same category?

sewingladydi

I don't dislike art quilts, but I've seen lots of them that seem to be just an excuse for poor workmanship. I realize art quilts are judged as a separate category (often based on technique, computer assisted, painted, etc), but maybe some should be in art shows, not quilt shows.

Many quilters try new techniques and hone their skills over the years which puts us all on a level playing field. Meaning that if I want to excell at a technique such as applique, I need to work at it, take classes, etc.

But I'm not an artist. So transferring a photo to fabric and painting it is not something I'll ever be able to do.

Sorry, gotta get off this soapbox!

Mattee

Because at the few shows I have been to (three separate shows), there were no separate categories. There was only ONE first prize, second, etc. Everyone was judged as one group. There were probably (I'm estimating) 50 or more quilts at each, all judged together. At the last one I went to, there were only a half dozen hand-quilted quilts, but I felt that they should have been given their own category. There were certainly enough to at least give out a first and second place ribbon.

Candace

Just because quilts are displayed together or hung near each other doesn't mean they were judged in the same category. Many venues don't have the room so they're displayed next to each other.

Bobbielinks

I can appreciate the care, time and love that someone puts into making a art quilt, however; I prefer traditional. I do think that at quilt shows the judges are looking for the "different" "one of a kind" item. Thank goodness I don't judge at shows! (grin) I simply love pieced, traditional quilts. And as a longarm quilter, I have a very hard time trying to think of something to quilt on an art quilt. Give me traditional any time!

Scissor Queen

Or maybe they were judged separately in their own catagory and then the top quilts from each category were judged together for the top prizes. Unless you saw the entrance guidlines and saw the judging you can't say how they were entered or judged, only how the prizes were awarded.

A 50 quilt show is a fairly small quilt show. Even the one put on by the guild where I used to live in a town of less than 30,000 had almost four hundred quilts in their show.

The county fair here had 90 quilts entered.