When I decided to enter two quilts into Wide Horizons which had its call open in March I was arguing to myself that it was giving the quilts a doubled chance of being accepted. One, “Seeing Red”, was also registered for the competion in Brno (Cz), and the jurying was scheduled to be done before the exhibition opened in Brno. Nor is there a statement that prohibits quilts from being entered in Wide Horizons which have been shown before. The second quilt I entered was the intended entry for EPMs contest “Ocean”.
My busy life being what it has been in the past few months, however, led to the fact that the Ocean-candidate could still use a bit more adding on when the deadline for Wide Horizons rolled in. I took my own photo – which I usually don’t do, I always take my quilts to be professionally photographed – and figured we would be notified in time that I could add a bit of stitching for an entry in Ocean should it not be chosen for Wide Horizons. Because there is a statement in the rules that the quilt must not be altered after a picture has been entered for competition.
Earlier this week, however, we still had not heard from Wide Horizons, and today was the final day for entering for Ocean. And I did want to get a professional photograph this time… I could have managed that, as I am a regular customer with the photographer, I think I would have been able to talk him into processing the photo so quickly that I could have had the picture taken yesterday and receive the fully edited file today. But no notice, and I found out that we would only be notified today. Too late to wait for confirmation about which, if any, of my two entries would be accepted… So I decided to take the risk, as I really wanted the Ocean-candidate to get a bit more stitching.
I added some more quilting, a few more embellishments, and figured it was worth the risk to maybe have to pull back should it be chosen, or just ask whether I could send in the final version, even if it did not match with the picture entirely. Stitching took place yesterday, but that definitely did not leave enough time for having it photographed professionally. I took photos this morning, hoping that they turned out ‘ok enough’ so it would not be dismissed for reason of insufficient photography.
Got in my entry with EPMbefore midday – couldn’t wait around all day, because there were so many things that needed to be done I just did not want to put it off. And well I did, because it took quite some time to get the application finished, they made me fill in all the relevant information several times. (I am not too plussed with their website: the German translation is rather faulty, I did not check the English version, but finally returned to doing it all in French because I figured I would understand well enough.)
In the afternoon the message arrived… and I was happy to read that Seeing Red had been accepted.
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| Detail photos of "Seeing Red" |
I had hoped that this one would be the one chosen, but you never know. No need to withdraw the Ocean entry. But again there I entered with a non-professional photo…
In any case, “Seeing Red” has been chosen for Wide Horizons and will be shown at EPM in September. I need to wait a few weeks to find out whether a second large quilt of mine will be shown. But definitely a small one will be as well, as I have started on the binding of my bird quilt for the EQA challenge.
More life is happening right now and I am on the train to visit my father in hospital, I fear there may not be as much time for creativity within the next few days as I had hoped to have in my two weeks off work. I brought some knitting, though, to calm my nerves, and am allowing me to cast on a new piece. In yellow.
It is an idiosyncratic combination of a knitting pattern I saw and Sarah C Swett's method of increasing at the beginning of a row. I love what I am seeing and getting - but right now it is a complete pain in the neck to be knitting the pattern because I only brought knitting needles with a rather roundish tip and it is proving rather difficult to get into a swing or flow with the knitting. I am steadfastly resisting the consumerist urge that says 'go get new neeldes!' because I do have well-pointed ones at home and don't quite know why I did not bring those. But they are there and I will wait until I get back home. Until then I can just knit a bit more slowly and meditatively, I do not need to buy any knitting needles.
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