Fall Fair Entry Madness

My husband Mike was confirming with me when my Fair quilts have to be dropped off - this Tuesday.

And then what, he asks? How do you find out if you win something, and what do you win? Well, first they are judged and then they are all hung on display, with the winning quilts having ribbons attached. What do you win, he asks? Uhhhhh...maybe $10, or even $5. And you *paid* $5.50 to enter these? He was shocked and appalled, as the saying goes in our house. He is the biggest supporter of my quilting habit, and I know he knew I wasn`t going to win a fortune if I did win, but I do think he`s quite amazed that I might be lucky to just get my money back! I said, look at it as investment in the arts and culture future of our children and grandchildren.

[I've just looked it up, the first prize for tied quilt is $20, fourth prize is $8; for the machine quilted quilt its $30 for 1st price and $15 for 4th - but I'm competing with hand quilters which for some reason I think is favoured at this fair; so...must inform hubby that the prizes are much grander than I first said, lol]

So, on to the labels. I have never been a happy label maker. Just write the information on a piece of muslin, with a pigma pen, try to make it legible, slap it on the quilt with fusible web after pinking the edges. But lucky for me Pat Sloan is having a virtual retreat weekend all about labels! So here are my efforts - still not as wonderful as one could make them, but a huge improvement over what they could have been.

So I`ve mailed in my form and fee, washed the quilts, counted the hours, made the labels, and now the nonsense of `samples must be attached`. Because some people with more ego than brains have in the past entered quilts that they bought instead of made, we are all now required to attach samples of the fabrics used in the quilt. But - the samples are generally smaller than the 1" size required (the At Home and Away I didn't decide to enter till after it was done - I had trouble finding anything! - lesson learned:)) This is what I came up with :

Meanwhile, I'm working hard on the Sally Post quilt - this is the third quilt I've done for others in the past couple of months - that's two quilts too many at all for me, and I'm really getting tired of this. The next one that's for someone else is my Mom's Christmas present, so I'm leaving that till December - I hope! Quilting quilts to leave the home for me are somewhat more stressful - I try to be extra neat, sitches straight and even, quilting imaginative, and of course the piecing or applique the best it can be. Quilting for home is fun - these quilts are well used by my family so I have lots of room to practice skills, try new things, and not worry about lopped points or frayed edges :)