Quilting has changed a lot over the years.  When I first joined a guild, a machine quilted quilt was often referred to as a ‘glorified mattress pad.’ Say something like that now and a legion of machine quilters will be coming for you with torches and pitchforks.

Machine quilting in general (and probably yours in particular) has evolved way past what your first machine quilted bed quilt looked like. It may have been shoved through the throat of your mother’s old Kenmore, snuggled in between the ping pong table and freezer chest in the basement, or some other less than ideal but functional spot. Ask me how I know……

Perhaps the machines and venues have changed, but what I think matters even more is the way we think about machine quilting. Our thinking has been influenced by everything we have seen, heard and read. Our thinking has been changed by information. Which we then attempted to apply to our quilts. Which pushed our skills forward and changed the quality of our work.

Even if we are still working in the basement with the ping pong table as our quilting buddy (Don’t knock it; there’s a lot of room on the top of that table!) it is unlikely anyone will look at your quilt today, call it a glorified mattress pad (cue the pitchforks…) and dismiss it because it is just machine quilted.

Machine quilting is not the only topic that has evolved. About 15 years ago, there was a judging phrase in common use: Good quilting is good quilting. As a candidate in the judging program, it was very comforting. If I was really thrown for a loop by a quilt I was looking at, that phrase meant I could go back to basics and have a solid footing for evaluating it. No matter what technique was used, it should lay flat. No matter what fabrics were chosen, the values should work.  Hand or machine, stitching should be secure.  The phrase meant all the tried and true standards held and were there to help me make sense of what I was looking at.

But then came a new genre of art quilts with their new materials and strong color and design sensibility. And their visual and emotional impact and their alternate edge finishes and their surface design.  After that, the genie was out of the bottle and all that stuff drifted into even the most traditional of corners of the quilting world.

Next came new tools and machines and of course lots and lots of information and suddenly ‘good quilting is good quilting’ wasn’t quite the touchstone it used to be. It’s still true, but if you’re going to be able to evaluate current quilts, you now need to be knowledgeable in a lot more than secure stitches and square corners.

It seems to me that some of us, who may have developed our skills over many years, sometimes weren’t sure if all that new, unfamiliar stuff was ‘real’ quilting. It was just easier to stick with what we already knew, stay where we were comfortable, with our knowledge of ‘good quilting’ and just let all that unfamiliar stuff slide right past us.

Unfortunately, one way to deal with things you are not familiar with is to marginalize them.

That’s just painted.
That’s just glued on.
That’s just done with the computer.
That’s just a photo.
That’s just machine quilting.    
      
Ah, the word “just”.

Whenever I hear the word ‘just’ in relation to a skill or practice, a tiny red flag pops up. I have noticed that it can sometimes indicate an underestimation of the skill required to do whatever ‘just’ is being applied.

Easy to do. Anyone can ‘just’ something away.
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But for judges, it’s a trap. We owe it to the makers whose quilts we judge to never sling ‘just’ at their work. Which means we have to stay current on things we may not be comfortable with or have a personal interest in. But by becoming Certified, that’s exactly what we signed up for.
 
 
Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Master Piece Quilts
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.​One of the shows I judged recently was somewhat frustrated with the outcome of their judging. The source of the frustration was that, for the second show in a row, a quilt made by someone who was not, or only very loosely, associated with the guild, won a blue ribbon in its category and was selected Best of Show. They believed that in both cases the quilt was quilted by a ‘professional’ quilter.

The group was exploring the possibility of closing entry to ‘professionals’ in the future. They asked a judge what she thought she should do.

Just for the record, I am not the judge that was asked, and I don’t know what response she ended up giving them. But like the last post, I imagine that others may struggle with this same topic. So here it is,  in the blog.

​I do understand the frustration of the guild. They did a huge amount of work with the goal of showcasing their members’ skills and someone else walked in with a quilt and walked out with a quilt and the top prize. They were hoping that one of their members’ quilts would hang in the spot reserved for Best of Show. In this case, they suspected that the point turned on the professional/non-professional designation, so this discussion will address that point.

Keep in mind that any word or concept could be substituted for 'professional,' depending on what constitutes the group’s dissatisfaction---traditional in a modern show, modern in a traditional show, computer assisted embroidery or quilting,  art quilts with a controversial image or message…….it could be anything that a group identifies as the line between inclusion and exclusion.

Their frustration is rooted in reality.  I know that in the past couple of months I have judged a number of quilts more than once in guild-level competition. There are a number of reasons why a quiltmaker might enter her quilts in multiple shows or in shows that are not put on by her home guild. Some are easier to empathize with than others, but to the sponsoring guild, the reason may not matter if the outcome is the same: an outsider took a ribbon they would like one of their own to have.

What to do? Anything? Nothing?

My honest answer is in two parts. The first is I don’t know what is right for you. The second is that this determination is 100% the decision of the sponsors of the show, in this case the guild. It is the guild’s show. They write the rules.

However, as a group considers an entry rule change, I would suggest some points to consider.

Get the facts. Look at your winners list. How many of the winners are members of the group you’re targeting? And just as importantly, how many of the quilts that didn’t ribbon were made by the defined group? Maybe it isn’t as widespread an issue as the frustration feels like it is.  Or maybe it’s bigger. Either way, you should be sure of the scope of the problem before you try to fix it.

Wherever the inclusion/exclusion line is drawn, you need to be sure there is an absolutely crystal clear definition of that line. For example: membership in the guild is a clear line. You’ve paid your dues and you’re on the membership list or you’re not. Membership is easily verified by anyone with access to the financial records of the guild or the quiltmaker’s cancelled check or receipt. It’s pretty black and white.

What constitutes being a professional quilter tends to be an organizational mine field. This was always tough but, the internet (You sold a pattern on Craftsy, are you a professional?) and the proliferation of track mounted machines (Track mounted quilting is no longer done only by quilters for hire.) makes this much harder to determine.
 
If you try to write your own definition, think long and hard. Pay very close attention to the wording. Have someone play devil's advocate and try to get around it. And finally, field test it. By this I mean sit down with the registration records from your last show and apply the potential rule change to the registrants.  Would the rule have effectively excluded only the entries you want to exclude, or would it have taken out some quilts you want to keep? In the case of professional quilters, your own members who paid for longarm services.

If it become too difficult to define the line between in and out, anther option is to add another form of recognition, rather than exclude a certain class of quiltmaker. For example, I recently judged a show that awarded a ribbon for Best Solo Needle.  The group felt that so many quilters used longarm services that they wanted to recognize the quiltmaker who did the entire job themselves. They took nothing away from the professionals, they gave something exta to the solo artist.

Consider the potential benefit of keeping the excluded quilts in the mix. Is the show richer for having more competitive quilts in it? No sponsoring group wants to feel taken advantage of, but exclusions usually create a certain amount of ill will. What is good will worth to you? 

Finally, consider that the meaning of the term 'professional' might not be the same as 'good' and might not automatically confer winner status.  Usually, after judging a few categories in any given show, I begin to recognize certain longarm 'signatures.' I see the same strong points again and again. And I see the same problems: A certain machine tension issue can be seen again and again over many quilts. The same particular so-so stop and start strategy is seen again and again. Just because a someone is paid for their services, doesn't mean those services are everything you might hope for. 

There is nothing wrong with a guild structuring their show for their own purposes. Just be very careful that the changes will really do what you want them to do and not create new and different problems.


Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Masterpiece Quilts
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​Hi there! It’s been a long time! In my part of the country (Northeast), the quilt show busy season seems to run from mid-September to mid-November. My season’s done for a while, and while I love judging, I’m ready for things to slow down. (Just in time for holiday madness.)

While I was working this year, I had some interesting questions and comments from the shows I judged.  There were some interesting points brought up and I thought I’d share them with you. If one group thought about these things, chances are others have too.

In keeping with our previous discussions about looking at quilts, let’s talk about one of my all-time favorite comments to make: “Something something something invites deeper viewing.”

Why exactly do you want to see this, or something like it, on your comment sheet? Or if you’re judging, why is this a good thing to say about someone’s quilt? I’ll tell you…..

As most of you know, a judge only has a few minutes to spend on each quilt, with a lot of points to evaluate in a short time. Most judges have worked out a system for getting this done; and the judge needs to stick to their system pretty closely to get through the day in a timely fashion. And most of the time it’s doable. 

But sometimes a quilt comes across the table that has so much to look at that the judge is sorely tempted to blow past the per-quilt time limit. It could be anything in the creation of the quilt: fussy cutting, embellishment, inking, photos that tell a story or detail a life, piecing variations, quilting designs or details, color interactions, complex design…anything that makes you want to stop and discover all the little treats that the maker has worked into her quilt for you to find.

The quilt might not be a winner, but it has a kind of magnetism that makes it memorable. When this happens to me, I have to drag myself away and force myself to keep moving. It’s a source of frustration for me, but an accomplishment for the quiltmaker. He or she managed to stop the judge in her tracks. That’s a big deal and I like to tell them about it.

But that’s not all.

The viewing of the quilt only starts in the judging room. The quilt will be hung in a show and can, along with all the other quilts, be viewed by many. The bigger the show, the more other quilts that one little quilt is surrounded by and the more viewers troop past the quilts.

Think about the viewers. Maybe they stood in line to get in, to get something to eat and to use the bathroom. They have traipsed through the vendors…sometimes lots and lots of vendors. They may be tired and on the verge of visual overload. And now they’re going to look at quilts. Maybe lots and lots of quilts. Hopefully their foot wear was well-chosen.

We’ve all been there.  At some point, studying the quilts becomes viewing the quilts, becomes breezing by the quilts.

Except there seems to be a little knot of people around one. “Wow!” “Look at this!”  “Oh my gosh.”

“Something something something invites deeper viewing.”
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Congratulations!
 
Stacy Koehler, Secretary, NACQJ
NQA Certified Judge
Qualified to Evaluate Master Piece Quilts
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