Deadline Achievement Complete! See Which 4 Quilts I Entered in QuiltCon 2024

For the first time in years (maybe ever), I had my QuiltCon entries submitted prior to the final day!

This week was the big deadline for QuiltCon 2024 contest quilts, and I have four entries this time around. I submitted three quilts to judged categories and one quilt to a special exhibit. In a typical year, less than one in four entries gets accepted, and I have frequently been incorrect about which (if any) of my quilts will get accepted to the show. Each entrant can enter as many quilts as they would like, but no more than four will be included in the actual show.

Update (12/12/2023): Jury results came in last week, and I was astonished that all four of my entries were accepted into QuiltCon 2024. I was really hoping at least one would get in, but I never anticipated a 100% acceptance rate. QuiltCon received 2,342 entries this year- the most ever, and could only accept 470 into the show. I am thrilled to have my quilts accepted into this amazing show.

Kudos to everyone who put their work out there to get juried, and congratulations to the lucky people who had their quilts accepted. Asking to have your work critiqued by others is hard and can put you in a vulnerable place. As always, this is one jury, for one show, in one year.

Last year, the quilt Keeping it 100 was not selected, but this year it will be displayed in the Maximalism exhibit. Do I always enter quilts multiple years? Definitely not. But, if I feel strongly that a particular quilt could fit well in a show, I will try again the next year.

Tipsy

Category:

Small Quilts

Quilts in the Small Quilts Category must have a perimeter of 119″ or smaller. Most categories require quilts to have a perimeter of 120″ or large, so this category tends to include a wide range of styles and techniques.

Quilt Description:

Tipsy explores Viva Magenta, the Pantone 2023 color of the year, and the use of line in a quilted composition. Line-work in most art forms exists primarily as dark lines applied to a light background. This piece flips that expectation by using mostly white lines within the pieced composition. Based on an improvisational log cabin, the narrow pieced lines hold great visual weight by appearing to tip the central composition off-center. The tilting effect is enhanced with the overlay of a quilted grid running parallel to the edges of the quilt. This highly regular ½” grid is created with 28-weight thread. The heavier thread weight enhances the juxtaposition of regular, regimented lines with the spontaneous effect of the semi-improvisational piecing.

---

Next Verse, Different Than the First

Category:

American Patchwork & Quilting Super Scrappy Quilting Challenge

Quilts in this category must include a minimum of 30 different fabrics in the quilt top, not including the backing or binding. Next Verse, Different Than the First has over 40 fabrics in the quilt top.

Quilt Description

How do scraps from one project take on a new life? Emergence, the predecessor of this quilt, was created from start to finish in the 100 days leading up to QuiltCon Together. When the virtual event kicked off, a pile of fabric strips was left next to my sewing machine. As I watched lectures, I used those scraps with additional solids, prints, and hand-dyed fabrics from my stash to create the quilt top for Next Verse, Different Than the First.

---

100 Days of Greenery

Category:

Appliqué

This was my easiest category decision of the year- an appliqué quilt for the appliqué category!

Quilt Description

Photographs captured of a wide variety of plant life at the local botanical garden inspired this hand needle turn appliqué quilt. Using AutoCAD, I translated these images into a template line drawing. Over the course of 100 days, each section of the line drawing was cut from a separate piece of fabric and the background ombré fabric was revealed during the appliqué process, creating a stained glass-like effect. The gridded quilting is reminiscent of observing the outdoor world through a window screen.

---

Keeping It 100

Category:

Maximalism Exhibit

This category is for a special exhibit. The quilts for this exhibit must get juried into the show, but the quilts accepted do not get judged and are not eligible for awards.

This is one of the three quilts I had rejected from QuiltCon 2023, and the only one I decided to re-enter. Why this one and not the others? Last year I entered this piece into the piecing category, but I’m not sure that was a particularly good category fit for the overall design. When the Maximalism Exhibit was announced, I decided to give this one another chance in a category that embraces the strongest design element of the quilt.

Quilt Description

Stripes were the theme of my first 100-day project for 2022. Between January 1st and April 10th, I explored the use of stripes in my quilting practice. Piecing techniques included inserting ⅛ ” wide strips, interleaving, Y-seams, and traditional piecing methods. As the quilt grew from the inside outward, I focused on how I could use the contrast (or lack of contrast) in the striped components to draw the viewer’s eye around the composition. 

This quilt was edge-to-edge quilted with the design U-Turn by Bethanne Nemesh.

---

What Happens Next?

All of the quilt contest entries are now in the hands of the jury. These individuals are anonymous during the jurying process, and remain anonymous forever unless they choose to reveal their jury participation at a later date.

If you are interested in what happens during the jury process, a few former jurors have written about their experiences:

• Steph Skardal
• Latifah Saafir
• Christa Watson

Modern Quilt Guild Members can also read more about the jurying and judging process here. (QuiltCon is run by The MQG and you must be a member to enter the show.)

Now we wait for results which typically arrive in mid-December. Even though this feels like forever to wait, it is actually a short amount of time compared to the jurying period for many shows.