State of shock!

The last few days I've been at the Canadian Quilters Association(CQA) annual quilt show and conference in Penticton, BC.  Being that it was so close by, a friend and I, Terry Aske, scooted up to take in the National Juried Show (NJS) - see some quilts, and be inspired. We both had entries in the show, and were curious to see how they looked.

We arrived mid afternoon on Thursday and were chatting with Jackie White, a blogging buddy, at the registration desk.  I was flipping through the booklet they produce of all the quilts in the show, looking to see how mine looked in print, when Jackie, seeing which was mine, said "Oh!  You weren't here last night.  You'd better go look at your quilt!".  Wednesday night was the awards night, and I really had no expectations of winning anything, and so had not gone up to take them in.  Based on Jackie's comments, with heart in throat we went into the show, quickly scanning the quilts looking for mine.

I really didn't know what to expect - this was my first time entering the NJS, and it was with my Flowers for Cynthia quilt which had gone down to Quilt Con and had received some less than encouraging comments from the judges there.  I was really only expecting to get the Canadian judges critique of my quilt, just to get a second opinion.  Imagine my surprise to see a ribbon, and then to realize it wasn't a third place or an Honourable Mention, which would have floored me, but an Award of Excellence!  I swear my jaw must have hit the floor - I was dumbfounded!  The lovely docent came over and suggested I go check to see what I had won.  Won?  The ribbon was thrilling enough!  I had no idea what the category or award was that I won - it just said "excellence" on the ribbon.  My second shock came when they told me that I had won the "Excellence in Workmanship for Domestic Machine Quilting" and that it was a two product prize, and directed me to the letter to see what I'd won.  Third shock - I had won a new sewing machine from Pfaff - an Expression 3.2, a thread prize from Wonderful Network of Wonderfil Thread, and there was even a cheque enclosed!

I was shaking!  We went back into the show,  to see if I could get a picture of me, my quilt and the ribbon.  Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed to be taken in the show, so I'm going to have to wait until I get my quilt and ribbon back to get one taken.  To try and calm down, we started looking at all of the other quilts - there was some amazing pieces - we definitely were inspired!  Oh the amazing work we saw - traditional and art quilts - all gorgeous. And to add to the thrill for us, we rounded a corner and found another of our friends from the Vancouver Modern Guild had won a ribbon for her quilt - way to go Stacey!  It turns out that Stacey was there on Wednesday and got a preview of the show before it opened to the public on Thursday, as well as being able to take some pictures.  See her and her beautiful quilt on her blog.  As an added bonus, she did get a picture of my quilt with it's ribbon, and that is also on her blog!

The pictures that I'm showing on the blog today are earlier pictures I took of my progress on this quilt and it's end result - I can't wait to get some new pictures with it's ribbon!

Now, to go checkout my new machine!
Happy quilting!

edited:  the award winning quilts are now posted on the CQA - NJS  page.  see them here