I was in a QUILT SHOW!!

Even though I've been a quilter for about 20 years, I have never had a quilt of mine in a quilt show.  Well, I guess there was this one time at the fair when I was a teenager, but it was SUPER STRESSFUL!  I mean, the JUDGEMENT!  Ugh!  I have a large enough anxiety issue without all of that pressure and judgey-ness on my hobby, for heavens sake.  So, over the years, I've decided that my quilts will remain in my house, and only shared with people who, if they have a judgement or criticism, will have the good sense to keep it to themselves so I don't have to throat-punch them.

But then, my friends in the Rubystreet Art Quilters group had a show at a local library recently, and there was no judgement to get into the show, there were no prizes, no juries, no stress of any kind really.  So, not one but TWO of my quilts hung in that!  And, it was amazing; I was very proud of myself, and I didn't have a panic attack over it.  Success and growth right there, people, that's what that is!

Here they are, hanging in the library's rafters:

This quilt is one that I've posted on here before, I think.  I started it a long time ago, and recently got it quilted.  It's from the book Material Obsession by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Filke.  Their version had brown backgrounds behind the flowers, but I was really into white at the time, so that's what I used in my version.



This quilt was totally inspired by the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg & Cheryl Arkinson.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this book, and I've made several projects from it.  I thoroughly enjoy their scrap quilting method called "Slabs" and I used that idea when I made this quilt.  It's called "Blackout", and was a Christmas gift for my husband.  He is a gun collector, and has one called a Blackout 300, which as far as I'm concerned, is Greek for "expensive."  But as he was explaining to me what makes it a Blackout and a 300, and I was trying to listen, I had this quilt idea flash before my eyes, so I got to work.  The cross in it is supposed to look like when you look through a gun's sights, but as I am a Girl, I wasn't really certain what that looked like, so I made up my own interpretation.

Here it is up a little closer so it's easier to see all the separate pieces in the "Slabs."  One thing I did NOT think about with this quilt is that we have a white cat.  White cat + all black quilt = a big ole non-practical mess...

So, there are my OFFICIAL show quilts!  Ha, I was in a show!  A couple more non-judgmental things like this, and I may get up the courage to enter a real, juried quilt show...who knows?!?  Of course, I may need to up my meds before that happens...