Now that the Georgia National Fair is officially over, I can share a little about our two days of judging quilts!
This year, I was paired with Kathy Howell…
…and we had SO much fun exploring our stack of quilts up close while sneaking glimpses of the quilts on the other tables. There was inspiration EVERYWHERE!!
Between our four judging teams, we judged over 400 quilts. As an added bonus, we had two interns who were such fun to work with!
Although we saw hundreds of gorgeous quilts, I want to focus on two that particularly caught my eye—one today and another tomorrow.
Today’s quilt is a landscape made by Wendy Earwood of Perry, Georgia…
There were so many fun touches to discover, but I especially loved her use of yo-yos!
They appeared in the sky…
In the trees…
On the bears…
And even on the frog…
What a playful way to add texture and dimension! Each time we looked, another little detail waited to be discovered.
I also particularly liked the simple quilting in the border. It added the perfect finish…
This quilt was a joy to judge.
Well done, Wendy!!
Come back tomorrow for another amazing quilt from the fair!
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Sometimes a quilting design needs just a little something extra!
An orange peel border already has those lovely repeating curves, but I wanted to give this one more interest and excitement. My addition? A few easy loops!
The loops bring another bit of movement to the orange peel design. I love how such a simple addition can make a familiar quilting pattern feel more playful.
If you want to give this a try, spend a few minutes doodling the design on paper first. Draw the orange peel curves, add the loops, and see how you like the combination. Then try it on a practice sandwich before moving to your quilt.
There’s room to experiment here. The goal is to find a version that you enjoy stitching and that works with your quilt.
Would you leave an orange peel border as it is, or would you add a few loops for extra fun?
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Sometimes the hardest part of a quilt is deciding what it will be!
I wanted to make a Texas wall-hanging. I had plenty of ideas swirling around, but I needed help choosing a direction. I also wasn’t sure I would want to keep this quilt, or maybe try to sell it.
So, I started a conversation with ChatGPT(aka “Chester”)
My first thought was cowgirls sitting on a fence. Something like this….
But the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. That is when I turned to Chester.
Its questions helped me narrow things down: Which idea kept drawing me back? What details would make the scene feel like somewhere I grew up? And what would I want the viewer to see?
As we “talked”, I found myself leaning toward a landscape. I wondered about including cotton or cattle, but the cattle won—white-faced Herefords, to be exact…..my Dad’s favorites!!
Then came the question of perspective. Were we standing in the pasture or looking into it?
“Looking over the fence,” I decided.
That choice gave the scene a foreground, but I still had details to work out. The pasture needed borders of mesquite trees and barbed wire fences…
And when the first sketch included hills, I knew immediately what needed changing. This ground needed to be FLAT!
We raised the fence, varied the cattle so two wouldn’t look exactly alike, and added more cactus and tufts of grass. Then I asked for a battered cowboy hat hanging on the nearest fence post.
That little detail felt right and reminded me of my Dad on his farm.
We worked through sketches, a line drawing that could help with patterns, and color versions. Each change brought the scene closer to what I had in mind—even though I hadn’t known how to describe it at first.
Somewhere along the way, my feelings about the quilt changed too.
I started out thinking I might not want to keep it. By the time the design took shape, I found myself saying, “I like this enough to make it for myself without worrying about trying to sell it!”
I still have the fabric decisions and stitching ahead of me, but now I have a direction I’m excited about.
Sometimes it helps to have someone—or something—ask a few questions while you sort through your ideas. The answers reminded me which details mattered most.
A quick note about using AI: I know its role in creative work raises questions, and I understand those concerns. For this project, I used ChatGPT to help sort through my ideas and visualize a possible design. The images shown are AI-generated concepts, not a finished quilt. My memories and choices guided the revisions, and interpreting that concept in fabric will involve many more decisions along the way.
In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.
