Blue Plate Special - 'I Am An Artisan' Quilt Contest

The day has finally arrived!  I can now share with you what has been happening with my quilt entry in the Kaffe Fassett  'I Am An Artisan' contest.  Here is a picture of the whole quilt that I can now share.

Blue Plate Special

First it was an honor just to have my quilt picked as a finalist.  I found out that they actually had 14 finalists instead of the 12 they originally announced they would select.  I am guessing they had a pretty hard time deciding which ones to select since there were so many awesome quilts to choose from.  Since I was picked as a finalist, I knew that my quilt would be hanging at the Houston Quilt Market in late October, and the Houston Quilt show in early November.  I was beyond excited just with that news.

Then I received an email from the girls organizing the contest and they asked if I would mind shipping my quilt a little early.  They had been approached by the folks at the International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene magazine who wanted to pick one of the quilts from the contest to highlight in an article in the 2017 issue of the magazine.  The article was about some of the special exhibits that would be showing at the festival this year. I am not sure how many of the fourteen quilts were mailed to them.  I was not told who they picked, I think they wanted it to be a surprise.  And what a surprise it was, they picked mine!!!

Blue Plate Special Article

Quilt Festival Magazine

This was all very exciting, but I still had to wait to hear when they were going to award the ribbons.  It had been mentioned that Kaffe Fassett would be picking the first place winner and the Honorable Mention quilt at the show.  I had also been told that they were going to pick the Viewers choice award from votes at the show and votes from a Facebook post where anyone could vote.  All very exciting, and they finally chose all three yesterday.  I was amazed and excited to hear that I had won the Viewers Choice Award!!!!!  How awesome is that?

Quilt with Ribbon

I of course have to thank my friends Chantell and Mia for their wonderful help with the embroidery designs.  Chantell is a genius with digitizing in the hoop quilt blocks and Mia is an amazing artist who drew and digitized the 'Blue Plate' embroidery designs that I used in the blue blocks.  Here is a close-up of some of the different blocks that I stitched with my Babylock Destiny machine.

Close Up of Blue Plate Special

Each and everyone of the designs are an absolutely perfect match at enhancing the amazing fabrics of the 'I Am An Artisan' line that Kaffe Fassett designed for Free Spirit fabrics.  I couldn't be happier with the results.  I think it is one spectacular quilt and I am beyond words to express my happiness at both having a winning quilt and being published in such a great magazine! 

Thank you Free Spirit Fabrics, thank you Kaffe Fassett for your inspirational fabrics, thank you to everyone at the Quilt Festival Quilt Scene magazine for choosing my quilt, thank you Chantell and Mia, and thank you to everyone who supports and encourages me, you keep me enthused and help me keep creating and moving forward.