When show quilts retire...

Lying in bed last night I thought I should show you some pictures of my retired show quilts. I am often asked what I do with such big quilts, well the answer is I use them. Once they finished the tour of duty some of them go into service on our bed. Some obviously are only designed to be on the wall and others are waiting to be sold, but the rest get to work. As soon as 'Burning Chrome' Came back from the NEC it went on the bed. I can assure you it is a very good bed quilt, works a treat. It had been the quilt I was going to show you but the cats had other ideas. It is in the washing machine after someone failed to keep hold of their breakfast this morning, but that is really my point. The quilts are pampered and fussed over for a period of time, them they come back to Earth and are really loved and used. This is why I am quite happy for people to touch my quilts when I do talks, these are working quilts they take far worse on a daily basis.Here you can see 'Ginko Typography' undergoing some serious sleep testing. It is looking promising though as three experienced testers find they can sleep quite well on it.

As 'Burning Chrome' is indisposed (well actually in di spin right now) 'Ginko Typography has stepped into the fray. You might have seen this quilt at Sandown 2006, it was the only show it went to because it is so heavy I couldn't afford to ship it anywhere. Sandown I can deliver by hand. As you can see it is on the bed and being appreciated by my cats. Looking at it I think I actually prefer the lived in look. I think the quilting looks a lot more interesting after the quilt has been washed and dried a few times. This is because I don't pre-wash my waddings and this quilt has two layers in it so have very clear quilting now. Maybe we should have a show category for most successful bed quilt that can only be entered by well used and loved quilts. I think it would be great fun to see what is really out there working for a living. In fact if you put up a picture somewhere and let me know I will post a list of real working quilts here. I am sure I am not the only one who wonders what is on peoples beds and sofas.

Professional quilt judges at work

Here you can see my most critical judge taking a closer look at the quilt. Of course the fact that he is even on it shows this one has potential. For some reason my cats are pretty good at identifying my successful projects very early in the process. If the cats don't go near it then it has problems. It's odd and I don't claim to understand it but I take more notice of it that I used to. I do wonder if it is something about how I am interacting with the piece that attracts or deters the cats.