There is one thing I really love about sending quilts to American shows, getting them back. Not in any negative way you understand, but because I know they come with things in the box. I love to have the show guide and the judging forms with the quilt which seems to be standard in the USA. I like the note saying who packed my quilt, I like the thank you letter from the organizer, and I am thrilled with the care taken in packing my quilt.
The judges comments do range from enlightening, encouraging, funny to bizarre and somewhat confusing, but I think that is common world wide. In the case of In Full Bloom I feel each judge has picked up on one thing I think is wrong with the quilt and I need to improve on. One pointed out I need to watch my tension, and the other that my mitres could be better. Both things I am working on and was aware of. I find it rather reassuring when a judge agrees with me on something like that, I feel it shows I do have a clue what I should be doing.
On the other hand one of the judges has me mystified with another tip for improvement, filled and even bindings. The binding is full to the edge, I've just been all the way around checking it. I was sure it was but you never know. The binding also looks pretty even to me. I haven't actually taken a ruler to it to check, but ... So is this just the comment of the moment? I know a lot of people on quiltart have been talking about this recently so maybe it is a phase the judges are going through. Are they looking for us to add extra wadding to the bindings to actually round it out? If so I see me getting a lot more of this comment as I really don't like that look.
I was somewhat amused by the complete difference in the rating of various aspects of my quilt. I don't think the judges agreed on any point. Just goes to show judging is very subjective. Otherwise how could one judge see "Integration of all design elements" as excellent and the other as needs improvement. The same was true of "Execution of chosen construction techniques". Before you ask no it wasn't just one judge being more picky as they swapped over their differences on several points. I am very pleased I only had two "Needs improvement" though and they were both from the same judge. Even more pleasing was the fact that both judges said I had a "Good choice of quilting design and style", which given quilting is my profession is possibly the most important thing they could have picked to like. Oddly the slightly more critical judge was also the one who offered more praise, so overall I am pretty pleased. Sorry but I will be largely ignoring two of the pieces of advice, the tip about binding and the suggestion that smaller squares for the blossom would have had more impact. The latter is possibly true, but not the point of the piece. I specifically chose to work with that resolution of piece.
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4 comments:
Judging art is totally subjective. My husband does it, sometimes with other judges. Once they each picked out their 40 favorites to try to narrow down the choices. None of the three judges had even one work of art in common. He has started saying he wants to do workshops rather than written reports. Quilting does have technical things to judge but in my opinoin that part is secondary to the artistic side. I'm glad to hear you got something from the judges reports anyway.
I would feel happier if it was made more clear it was subjective rather than implying that there are factual measurements that can be made. I heanr more people saying this so hopefully thta time will come. I think I have been quite lucky recently, all the sheets have picked up on things I understand and agreed with.
I had been slightly disapointed that the nudes had only come third until I saw my judging sheets. It must have been a very close competition and the marks were very high. I have no problem with coming third now, in fact I am thrilled.
Yes, judging is so subjective about the art side of quilts.
About the bindings. There have been times that I've found it necessary to steam and use my taylor clapper to flatten them if the fabric is a bit stiff OR soft to get the fold to hold. If a fold line is not there, the indistinct binding edge can make it appear to be uneven.
OK, I see what you are saying and I do have quilts where that is probably a really good idea. This one has pretty well defined edges as it is a piped binding with a contrast piping and the outer edge is pretty solid. I think it is just the thing of the moment to be picked up on. Funny you should mention pressing bindings though as just last week I was experimenting in that area to try and make a very wide binding look crisp. I hadn't thought of trying my clapper, but I will next time.
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