I’m back! Things have settled down here on the Meadow– baby Charlie successfully arrived with less hoopla than predicted, my shoulder surgery is not for another month, my SILs hand injury is under control, and I’m even starting to enjoy summer a little. Thank you to everyone who commented and wrote me privately. You got me through some tough moments. And don’t worry– you’ll never get rid of me!

I have actually blogged every week out of habit– I just didn’t post. And once I just do a little proofreading and add some photos, I’ll upload my past six weeks for your binge reading pleasure– you know, just like Netflix. I’m not going to send notification when I do– that’ll be just for new posts, but look for five or six outdated posts in the first half of August if you’re interested. I did manage to keep doing some sewing. And retail therapy. Lots of retail therapy.

This is my annual Maine Quilt Show post! What a great time and what a beautiful show. I was worried after 2020 that quilt shows would become a thing of the past– not so. The quality of the quilts just improves, the vendors were all back, and attendance looked phenomenal. This happened– is my luck turning?

I really appreciate all of my friends who were INCENSED that I didn’t get a first– I just love you guys! 🤣 You make me smile. Any of my close friends and family know that winning a Best in Show is on my bucket list for the advancement of machine embroidery, but this is really a good step on the way and I am thrilled. So here is the blue ribbon winner in my “Pieced Medium” category– they group by size after they get the entries. (I was surprised there were a lot of quilts bigger than mine. I didn’t even make it to “Pieced Large.”)

So what is the difference between these two things?

It’s obvious to me that for a Pieced Medium award, I need more pieces! The winning quilt has such an endearing story– it was right next to a friend’s quilt– they made them together! I’m a sucker for quilty friend stories! My most heart congratulations to both of them. ❤️

The Maine Quilt Show does not offer cash prizes which is a huge plus, or all the international quilt stars would take it over. It’s very much a New England thing, if not mostly Maine. It’s wonderful, because you get to see what everyday people are making– everything is very heart felt, very loved.

And if they just counted the number of pieces, this would have won! All the corners matched– you can always trust me to look– haha. It got an Honorable Mention.

There were a couple of honorable mentions in each category– I appreciate that they do this to recognize some that just missed the top three. Here’s a second one in my category.

Now here’s the Best in Show– beautiful applique, of course!

They might as well just award Best In Show to the first place applique winner– those quilts win again and again! Here’s a detail.

So, if we ever want to win Best in Show, we’d all better start appliqueing. It’s just not what I do– I want the win for Machine Embroidery! Besides, if you ever find yourself creating quilts for what will win and not what you love, you’re on really shaky ground, in my opinion.

Here’s more gorgeous applique– I’m sure any of these would have won Best in Show before a pieced quilt would have.

The quilting in this category was gorgeous as well.

The Maine show also has a “Mixed” category for those that have piecing and applique. That’s one of my favorite categories, because I just can’t let go of piecing. ❤️

This MIXED quilt won BIG! Three ribbons It was fabulous. There were other ribbons for Best Embellishment, Best Use of Color, Judges Choice, etc. The white hand means it’s all hand work.

This quilt won for “Pieced Small”– see what I mean about pieces?! I think there were 10,000, but does that even seem possible? It was SMALL.

This next quilt was very neatly done– the V at the bottom right was for the quilter’s husband who had passed– Vic, I believe. ❤️ I didn’t read every card, but someone took the time to print up every artist’s statement to hang on the quilts. Some of the stories were very interesting.

I always enjoy people’s interpretations of patterns I have seen and liked! Be aware– if you want to enter most judged shows, you can’t use a kit or BOM– the color choices have to be your own. More on that later. This was a Wendy Sheppard that I have the pattern for. Nicely done!

Quite a few Lori Holts!

And aha! I turned the corner and my favorite LQS had hung my Posh Penelope about 30 feet in the air– I was so proud! I made it beginning in a class they had last October. I may add some fancier quilting and enter it in the Pieced category next year– do you think there are enough pieces??

My teacher, Sue, also had one of her Sew Kind of Wonderful finishes hung. I didn’t take any vendor pictures other than this, because they usually don’t want you taking pictures, they want you to BUY. But the vendors were fantastic. One of the usual quilt show complaints is not enough vendor fabric– but there was tons of fabric and it seemed to be stuff you don’t see online. (I will show my little haul in the next post!)

Next, on to the Modern quilts. I. myself, have never understood why quilters gravitated to this 70 year old trend, except that it’s geometric and thus easy to sew. Why not impressionism or baroque style? At any rate, I took a few snaps for the fans out there.

Where ever I saw someone posing with their quilt, I took a picture, too! They are already famous, right?

I noticed there was a willingness at this show to allow the artist to choose their own category– this Quiltworx design was in the Modern category. You have to wonder if it would have done better elsewhere– note the large number of pieces! 😂

Well, I must like MODERN more than I want to admit, because I now see I took a lot of pictures here. This is Alison Glass’ Trinket pattern I’ve always admired.

Next, ART. I’d love to have an entry in this category– you are then an artist and not just a person who loves granny hobbies, right? Here is the winner:

And more:

I thought the entries were a little light here– there were no LARGE ART pieces.

And then here is that category so close to my heart. OTHER. 🤣 I believe this was made for machine embroidery, and I regret I haven’t had one here yet. I probably could have entered Carefree Highways here, but when you see the others in OTHER, it wasn’t a great fit. I don’t know.

Our winner had scraps of doilies and other linens:

The distinction between OTHER and ART was a little cloudy for me, because this bear and moose seemed like they should have been ART. But the moose won anyway–yay!

This fun thing didn’t win anything! I’m not sure if it was OTHER or ART. I could’ve looked at all the things forever.

It had some historic things on it, like the Abe Lincoln pins.

So that was pretty much the judged portion of the show. There were many other quilts– 500 in all. Some were display only, some were done for a show theme– I’m not even really sure what the theme was. Shops from the New England Shop Hop had entries with fabric printed for the hop. There are dozens of guilds in Maine and some did challenges. Not to mention a couple of curated shows in extra rooms. I’m just going to do a big dump here of eye candy!

This is made with the chicken fabric I bought for a chicken quilt, but my fabric is still sitting in a drawer.

This next quilt, I was able to speak to the maker. She made this from a Block of the Month, but designed her own border. It was gorgeous. She had so hoped to be in the judged division, but because it was basically a kit, it wasn’t allowed. It’s disappointing because all she had to do was buy her own felted wool and it would have been fine. I’m sure it would have earned a ribbon. I love the monogramming! I reminded her, “There’s always next year!”

So that was the Maine Quilt Show for 2026. This state really knows how it’s done. I really need to volunteer next year and help out. It is a gargantuan effort! If you quilt isn’t in my story here, it’s just because someone was standing in front of it! xox

Before I left, of course, I went to take one more look at Carefree Highways– it will now be retired to many years on Sugar Meadow before it starts its years long journey down through my kids and grandkids and maybe even great-grandchildren some day. I hope it makes it to the Tricentennial, at least!

I was prevented from taking a last picture of it because of a group of people who were busy finding and photographing all of their states. It really made me happy to see it being enjoyed so much.

xox
Carol