Great News From Quilt Canada!

Quilt Canada 2024, held in Edmonton, Alberta from June 19-22, is now over and the winners of the Canadian Quilters Association’s (CQA) National Juried show have been revealed. And guess what?…yours truly won an award for my Elvis Costello quilt! I was actually at the cottage when I got the email about having won an award, but they didn’t tell me what I had won. The CQA announced the winners at the awards ceremony on June 19th (live on Facebook) and since I don’t have a Facebook account I had to rely on a couple of guild friends to let me know what I had won. Well, I’m thrilled to announce that Elvis won 3rd place in the category “Art Depiction of Human or Animal Form”.

Luckily, my friend Tracey, of Whirls’N’Swirls Quilting, has another APQS friend who was at the show (Jenny from Finely Quilted in Alberta), and she took a great photo of my quilt. Sue M, a fellow guild member, also attended the show and took a couple of photos for me too. After seeing photos of all the amazing quilts there, I was very proud to be included amongst the winners. You can check out all the award winners here. Prepare to be blown away!

It’s always a little hard to put your work out there to be judged…will my work be “good enough”?…can I take the rejection?…and countless other questions come to mind. Maybe some of you have been in the same position. This was my 4th time submitting something to the NJS and only the 1st time being accepted, and I’ve heard the same thing from other quilters. As a matter of fact, I had an interesting conversation a few years ago with Kathy Wylie, an incredibly talented quilter whose work I’ve admired for years. She told me that it took a few tries for her to be accepted as well and to not give up. Considering that she’s won many national and international awards for her stunning work, I was smart enough to take her advice.

As a matter of fact, Kathy won two awards at last year’s National Juried Show for her piece, Beauty in the Broken. She does the most exquisite and intricate hand applique. You will be amazed at the detail.

I was just thrilled to be accepted into the NJS never thinking Elvis would win an award, but it happened anyway. So now you, too, can be brave enough to put your work out there…you never know what will happen.

Jenny’s photo

Sue’s photo