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Continue ShoppingUnchosen Quilts
Just for the fun of it, I like to make an art quilt occasionally. I can be creative, learn something new, and see what happens without the pressure of needing to make it into a pattern. For the past 4 years I've chosen to participate in the Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics challenge. Paying the entry fee and buying the fabric motivates me to finish and much to my delight, my first three entries were selected to be included in the challenge books and to travel around the country and even to Australia.
This past year the theme of the challenge was "Prince" and the fabrics were beautiful shades of purple. Though it's hard to see in the photos, the guitar is thicker than the background, the guitar neck is purple acrylic and the strings, bridge and knobs are all real guitar accessories. It's awesome! I think it's one of the best art pieces I've done.
I uploaded the photos and sent them in on time and then forgot about it. I was really busy and I just assumed it would be a finalist because my previous entries had been. Much to my surprise, I received an email that said, no thanks. Huh. Interesting.
Of course I thought about this for awhile and wondered if my pictures weren't good enough. In my opinion, it's just too awesome to reject. Ha! That's the real issue, it's just a matter of opinion. It's not a reflection of the quality of my work, it just didn't strike a chord with the judges. Looking at the winning designs from this challenge and the last one, Van Gogh, I can see that the judges prefer portrait quilts. That's fine, they chose some really great ones and the winners certainly deserved their honors but it doesn't make my quilt any less wonderful.
The best part? My quilt gets to stay with me instead of going off wandering without me for the next 18 months. We've decided to take it on the road with us and add a couple of other art quilts along with it and make our own little art gallery in our show booth. Stop by if we are at the same show and take a look at my odd and interesting art.
Debi Grundmeier
Aug 14, 2018
Julie-I think this quilt is AWESOME. I, too, entered and was chosen. I’ve shown my friends the instagram page with many of the entries, including yours. They have all thought your was so unique. I, too decided to check your name to see if your quilt was in the same tour as mine. When I learned, through this page that yours wasn’t chosen I was soooo disappointed. However, like you say, somehow it didn’t fit, somehow, in the curators vision of the two galleries. Congrats on the previous years entries!
Debi