I've been catching up with the Quilt Show, and I've really enjoyed a little video with Hollis Chatelain. One of the Questions Alex asked her was do you make quilts for a competition. I love her answer and I thought if I am that interested maybe you guys are too. It's a question I get asked a lot. Much like Hollis, there are quilts I have to make. Even if they are never seen by anyone I need to make them.There are some that when I start them I am thinking ahead to where I might send the quilt, although they don't always end up where I was thinking of. The wholecloth I am working on is a good example. I need to make this quilt, and there are a few more still in my head with will have to be made too. I know that several of them will be big, you know really big. So I have checked with a couple of shows to see if they will be able to hang them. I really want the current one to hang at Sandown. Sandown is the first show I ever entered and it is my local show so it's important to me. They have been great about this monster and I think we will be able to get it up there.
Also being so big it seems a good candidate to go to America. So I've also checked the show restrictions there. The quilt will probably be trimmed to the maximum Houston size so it can try to go there. The new art quilt I also had to make, it's been bugging me a while (and again there are several more waiting to get out). This one I've made larger than I really wanted to. So many of the shows are now putting in minimum sizes the disqualify my art quilts I thought I would see how I felt about working to their sizes. Oddly I'm less happy with this so it may be a one off experiment. I like to make my quilts the size they want to be be. This is one of the reasons I have nothing at the FoQ this year. The quilts I had available are too small. So long as some shows will take the smaller (under 1m) quilts I think I will stick to making the art quilts I want to and not worry so much. Trimming an inch off a 140" quilt feels a lot better than adding 6" to a 34" quilt.
So in short, I don't really make quilts for shows. Often I don't even have an idea where they might work until they are mostly done. My quilts need me to make them and life is a lot quieter if I do what my quilts tell me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Could you imagine some of the great painters in history having size limitations on their paintings? The world would have sadly missed many amazing pieces of art. Create your quilts, and in the end there will be a place to display it. Maybe not at your dearest quilt show, but you have a talent and many people recognize that. It would be a shame to see your biggest dreams and ideas stifled by a minimum size requirement. ;)
Valerie I could hug you. Some people feel that the most important thing is for me to make my quilts to the show requirements. I'll try and keep them small enough to display (no promises) but I really think this is the first and last I enlarge for their benefit. There are lot's of shows that will take any size it's just places like Festival or Quilts that have brought in the limitation. I guess I won't be showing as much there in future :)
Resonance.
I have to agree with Valerie - make the quilt you want to make and do your best with it. I think you'll be happier in the long run.
Janet
I am happy to hear it Ferret, and I look forward to your future creations, big and small! ;)
Post a Comment