Submitting a quilt to a quilt show/competition

The deadline for QuiltCon 2017 is fast approaching at the end of the month, and it will be followed by Quilt Canada 2017, Vermont Quilt Festival and many other regional shows. While it is never expected or required that an MMQG member submit their work to a competition, it can be a fun way to challenge yourself and get feedback on your work!

Image courtesy of QuiltCon East

We only had a few minutes to discuss this at the November meeting, so I wanted to post some resources here for anyone who is thinking about submitting work to one of the competitions for the first time, or simply wants to up their quilting game... if you have any questions to ask or experiences to share, please do so in the comments!



Our own member Lily Lam was kind enough to share a very in-depth article she wrote about being a quilt judge and the things they consider when judging a quilt. You can find the full article in the Members Only section of the blog.

There are also some great blog posts on the subject of things to do if you want to increase your chances of being accepted to a show. Latifah Saafir has a great post titled "Former QuiltCon Juror Tells All". The MQG offers some good tips for photographing your quilts (generally a requirement for submission), and Christa Quilts offers some good tips as well.

And, of course, different shows have different rules/guidelines for their submission process...

QuiltCon 2017 - 
Arguably the largest modern quilt show around, QuiltCon offers a lot of information for those thinking of submitting work. They offer copies of their judging sheets, as well as their 2017 judging policy and jurying policy. Following the controversy over the 'derivative' blog post over the summer, I would expect that some changes will be made to the rules for QuiltCon 2018, but for now these are the guidelines that entrants can expect to be judged by in 2017.

Vermont Quilt Festival - 
If you're looking for something a bit more local (about 2 hours south of Montreal), or a show that is not exclusively modern, then the Vermont Quilt Festival might be more your speed. They cover a very broad range of style from very traditional to very modern and everything in between. For more details, you can check out the PDF on their info and rules.

Quilt Canada 2017 - 
If you prefer a Canadian competition, then Quilt Canada is for you. It is a smaller juried show held in Toronto in the spring, and they offer informative PDFs titled 'Quilting Standards' and 'Elements and Principles of Design'. These PDFs offer some great overall information on what the judges look for in a winning quilt.

CQ Salon 2018 - 
And finally, there is the local Courtepointe Quebec Salon that is held every other year here in Quebec. The next one will be in 2018 so they do not have any information posted at the moment, but you can look at info and pictures from the 2016 salon on their website.