Nebraska State Fair–Quilts

I just love attending, exhibiting and white gloving at the Nebraska State Fair each year.  There were 467 quilts entered from 195 exhibitors and they were fantastic!  Sandi McMillan won the grand champion award with this quilt.  Her machine quilting is amazing and she does it all on a domestic machine too.
Here are a couple of detail photos of her quilting – isn’t it beautiful?  Sandi has won the grand champion award numerous years and they are well deserved honors.  Click on the photos to enlarge them to take in all the detail.

 

Reserve Champion honors went to the Nebraska State Quilt Guild’s raffle quilt.  It too is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!  You can see other photos of it on this blog post on August 3, 2011.

I entered two small quilts and was lucky to win two ribbons.  My miniature “Sweet Remembrance” won a second place ribbon.  You can read more about it here on a blog post on March 31, 2011.

The quilt I made for our guild challenge received a first place ribbon.  I was surprised and pleased of course but was thinking of not even entering it.  I didn't know if it had enough pizazz or something but glad I did.  I did do more quilting on one of the borders before I took it though.  There were a lot of entries in this class too so that makes it even a nicer win.  (Notice how the large and med. quilts are hung...skirt hangers with hooks over the pipes.  Really works slick.)The funny part of this win was the prize.  I read on the online results page that it got a special award and couldn’t figure out what that was.   I didn’t realize the class was divided into two sections and thought I got a second place as my name was second on the list.  I didn’t see the placing numbers for several days and was still not sure what the award was.  The prize I won was a $25 gift certificate to Quilter’s Delight quilt shop in Holdrege, NE…owned and operated by my long time friend.  She gives the prize for this category each year and this year I just happened to win it. 

When the State Fair moved from Lincoln to Grand Island last year the state fair board decided it wanted to have a large block made for every county in the state and have them framed and hung outside the large room where the quilt display is held.  I was asked to make a block for my county and write about it in this blog post from September 17, 2010.  This was a photo I took of the block before I sent it off  and is now framed.

Here is a view of one of the walls where the blocks were hung.  All the county blocks got finished but 3 counties so there were 90 of the 93 Nebraska counties represented.  Hopefully the last 3 will get done to be hung with the rest by next year.  As you can see they are high up on the wall and were a little difficult to get photos of individually as the glare off the glass reflected the lights overhead. 

The Grand Island newspaper had a nice article about the quilt display and these county blocks here.  The fair board hosted a reception for all the makers of the blocks during the fair at the VIP lounge.  The lounge is a large glassed in area on the second floor overlooking the air conditioned show arena.  Now that would be the way to watch a livestock show!  What fun it was to see so many people I knew and a lot I didn’t know.  I think most of the makers of the blocks attended that reception so they came from all parts of the state.

I have been so busy every day lately and have not taken time to post … maybe things will slow down a bit now and I can catch up.  I do have some photos and ideas for posts but just need to get them written up.

Until Later,

Lynn