Quilt Competition Update

I know that I am a little overdue for an update on the three quilt competitions that I planned to enter this year.  I thought now would be a good time to let you know which two quilts have been completed and entries sent in,  and what progress I have made on the third one.  If you forgot what the three competitions were you can catch up here.  I also did an update here.  Make sure you read all the way through, there is an exciting announcement near the bottom of this post!

The Kaffe Fassett "I am an Artisan" quilt challenge for the International Quilt Festival in Houston was completed and entered first.  I still can't show you a picture of the final quilt because the winners will not be announced until October.  On July 7th I received a letter which stated:

Dear Cherri Kincaid,

Congratulations on your quilt Blue Plate Special being selected for inclusion in the special exhibit I Am an Artisan Challenge.

This was super exciting since it was the first quilt contest I have entered other than the Hoffman Challenge.  I will just have to be patient until October!  I did think maybe another small sneak peek would be ok.

Next I thought I would update you on my progress with the Moda Bella Solids competition.  They asked that we use an original design and that we use all the twelve solid colors of fabrics that they picked, and nothing else.  That by itself was a challenge!  The quilt that I designed has a total of 80 blocks.  All 80 blocks were stitched on my trusty Babylock embroidery machine.  As of today, I have sewn all the blocks together, made and attached a border, made a back with the leftover fabrics, and I have it almost quilted.  Remember this quilt is 72 inches by 90 inches!  It is the largest quilt I have ever made and it weighs a ton.  Quilting it is going to give me great arm and shoulder muscles.  I won't be able to show you this quilt either since it hasn't been submitted to the competition yet, but I do think you should get a little peek of it also! 

Sew Cute!

Last but in no way the least, is the Hoffman Challenge.  I love entering this contest every year.  I am not positive, but I think I have entered it at least six years.  I have been very lucky that every quilt I have entered, except one, has been selected to travel for a year to different quilt shows and locations all over the US. 

This years entry was one of my favorites, I just loved that one whole row of those little shirts.  I think they made the whole quilt, they were just that cute.  I have to thank both Chantell and Mia for their contributions of designs.  They both did an excellent job of digitizing exactly the designs that I needed to accomplish the final design of the quilt.

On July 14th I received this letter:

Dear  Cherri,

Thank you for entering our 2017 Hoffman Fabric Mastery Challenge.

We have completed our initial jury selection and would like to include your piece(s) for the next step of our challenge.  This includes the physical judging to decide if your piece will travel in the Mastery Hoffman Challenge Shows beginning September 2017 and continuing through September 2018

We have determined that we would like to see and consider the following pieces presented by you.

1.         Aloha Hoffman

Exciting right?  So one of the reasons that I waited until today to write this post is because they let us know on Facebook that they would be announcing the winners Aug 16th on their web page.  I thought it would be fun to see if my name showed up as a winner. 

Since the judging is over I believe its ok to show you some pictures of the finished quilt.  First is a picture of the whole quilt.

Aloha Hoffman

Here is a close up of some of the blocks:

See those little shirts?  The collars and pockets are '3-D'.  Sew cute!  As you can tell I was going for a Hawaiian theme for the quilt.  That is why I titled it Aloha Hoffman.  All of the embroidery designs are applique and if you look closely you can see where the 'challenge' fabric has been used.

So?  Did you go look?  Did you see?  I won the Hoffman Choice award!!!!  You have to scroll down just a little, but there it is!  For some reason they moved it from the applique category to the pieced category, but that is ok with me! 

Now for the really exciting news!  I received a letter from the home office of Hoffman fabrics.  Walter Hoffman fell in love with my quilt and when he found out that it was for sale he bought it!  So not only did I finally win a prize, I won an even bigger prize.  Can you imagine?  My quilt is going to have a "forever" home at the Hoffman Fabric Office in Mission Viejo in California!!!!  I have seen some pictures of Mr. Hoffman and he is always wearing a Hawaiian shirt.  I am thinking those little shirts are the reason he loved my quilt!

Now I have known for about a week that I won, but this morning when I went to see it "in print",  I found out that my friend Sally Dorer also won the same prize in a different category!  Super excited for her also.  Here is a picture of her quilt.  It's under the Mixed Technique category.  Yes, I have some really talented friends!

Who Spilled the Paints?