Juror Award
#7 Joyful Seasons
Kathy Devlin McManus
2019
Hand pieced; appliqué
machine quilted by Carolyn Niesuchouski
“Being an artist and loving our four seasons, I decided to design a wall quilt that would represent the beauty and joy of those four seasons.
Hexagons lend themselves to the round flower shape, so I filled the center of the quilt with flowers and leaves – this represents summer.
The left side border of the quilt represents spring with small flowers and tall hollyhocks.
The right-side border represents fall with sunflowers and pumpkins underneath.
The border across the top represents my favorite tree – the Balsam evergreen; it has brown hexagons for the ground and a sky full of stars.
The bottom border shows the same Balsam trees with snow on the ground and snow falling from the sky, Winter. There are a couple of hand appliquéd snowmen sledding and playing in the snow!
It took two years on and off to hand-sew the hexagons for the quilt top. It was meditative, peaceful, and exciting!”
Juror Award
#34 Martha by Linda Diak
2021
Appliqué; raw-edge appliqué;
free-motion machine quilted
“From her curly forehead locks to her shaggy coat, from her big, steady eyes, to her elegant nose and knowing smile, Martha is a composite of all the cows I have admired over the years.
Martha was created using raw edge appliqué, a technique in which fabric is fused together, leaving the edges of each piece visible.
There are two layers of batting inside. The bottom layer is cotton, which gives a nice weight to the piece and allows it to hang well. The top layer is wool, giving loft and definition to the feathers and sunflowers.
Quilting was done on a sit-down machine and is all freehand, or free-motion, quilting. Just as Martha is a blend of traditional and fun, the quilting incorporates traditional feathers and stippling with lighter, more fanciful elements in the locks, the fur, and the sunflowers.”
Juror Award
#14 My Blue Heaven by Erma Hastings
2019
Machine pieced; machine quilted
“My Blue Heaven was made after seeing this layout variation for the ‘Hunter’s Star.’ I like to make ‘scrappy’ quilts. The variety of fabrics used makes the quilt more interesting to make and to view. All the fabrics used in this quilt came from my stash.”
Staff Award
#11 Stories by Kathleen Geagan
Brownsville, Vermont
2021
Machine pieced; appliqué
machine quilted by Flying Goose Custom Quilting
“I chose this name because it is a collection of stories from a journey that began in 1984, when I drove through and stopped at Shenandoah National Park, and has yet to end. It has included a month spent on the Navajo reservation, a cross country trip to many national parks, and many vacations. I finished all of the (then) 61 parks in October 2019, and started the quilt. Congress has since added 2 new parks. I’ve been to White Sands, but need to get to New River Gorge. The patches represent the U.S. and Canadian national parks I’ve been to, some U.S. national monuments, the New Zealand Great Walks and national parks I’ve done, and one from Australia’s Heron Island.
The fabric from each square was specifically chosen as part of the story. The sashing is the pebbles on the shores of Iniakuk Lake in Alaska, the triangles and outer border are self-explanatory, the back is water.
The quilting was done by Mara Novak of Flying Goose Quilting, who used multiple thread colors to blend the stitching with the background.”