“Majesty” recently returned from showing at Denver Int. I am constantly amazed at the things judges comment on. “Knife edge to (of?) quilt should not allow front to show on the back.”

Hmmmm- what’s a knife edge? Maybe if you sewed the back to the front like a pillowcase and turned it right side out, that might be a knife edge, I don’t know. I did a faced edge on this quilt because I didn’t want it traditionally bound. It was a design decision. I stitched the backing inside the seam line of the seam allowance as one does for garment facings so that it would turn slightly to the back and not show on the front and would also help the thickness of the area to lay flat. It came out exactly as I planned. The facing finished at 1-5/8″ and there is a uniform 1/8″ 0f the front showing on the back. What the heck difference does it make if some front shows on the back? It’s a wall quilt, you don’t see the back. The main thing is no back shows on the front and it is very neatly done.

She also said there were threads on the back that should be trimmed. I quilted it with invisible thread on the back. It took me almost 5 minutes, but I did find one thread that needed to be buried, I don’t think trimming is adequate.

And lastly “Quilting design, although dense, could be varied in size scale to bring more dimension to the quilt.”

And I suppose if I had done that she’d be saying it wasn’t consistent. The quilting reflects the content of the different areas and is done in many different threads to compliment those areas, equal amounts of stitching helps the finished product to hang flat and square.

Sometimes I wonder if judges even consider their reputations! Clearly this one was scraping to keep me out of the ribbons here which I thought was pretty obvious when I looked at what did win, the top two awards going to the same person, whose work was nice but not exceptional. I don’t expect to win everything, but I do expect impartial, knowledgeable judging.

Tags: contests, Elk, Judging, Machine quilting