And the Winners Are.......

....in the Odessa Quilt Club 23rd Annual Quilt Show, held April 24th and 25th in Odessa, Washington. We had about 140 entries plus about 50 Hoffman Challenge quilts and another 20 or so from our featured quilter, Kathy Conway.

LaDawna Whitaker's "Busy Boy" won a special ribbon for the Sweetest Quilt at the show.

Ah, those were the days!

The ribbon for the best Hand Quilted Quilt went to Ginger Patano for "Hop To It". One of my very most personal favorites.

Beautiful, don't you think?

The prize for the Best Machine Quilted Quilt went to Shelley Seiverkropp for "I Love the Half Square Triangle II"

Last year, remember, she won the same prize with our quilt " Southern Belle Sunbonnet Sue".

The Mayor's Award went to "Dreamy Hexagons" by Patricia Geis.

The award for the Best Large Quilt went to Judy Main for "Basketweaver".

The award for the Best Baby or Crib Quilt went to our featured quilter, Kathy Conway, for her entry, "Kathy's Cabin Fever Friends". Remember yesterday, I showed some quick cell-phone shots from the first day of the show? I said these were some of my favorites? For a change, the viewers, agreed with me.

Kathy said she gave out fabric and asked them to do 'anything'. When the blocks came back, they were all different sizes, so, then, came to problem of putting the puzzle together. I'd say she did a great job.

The prize for Best Small Quilt went to Ann Sanders for her quilt, "Bird Street of Dreams". 

It has BLING and Chickadees. Several of the favorites had BLING: Kathy's cabin fever quilt, above, this one, and Janine Fisher's quilt, below, somewhere.

My grandmother, Ruby Mae (Steele) Allen's quilt won Best Antique Quilt, for this "Double Wedding Ring". I think she would have liked this prize. The quilt, made around 1960 was hand pieced and hand quilted. Ruby was born in Minnesota in 1889 and died in Washington state in 1989, age 100 years and 8 days.

She homesteaded in Montana in 1907, struck oil in 1917, and never went back there. They lost three children in the flu epidemic of 1918-1919 and she almost died, herself. She said, "Everything there just blew away, eventually." Our family sold the land a few years ago. She never quite got over losing those little boys. She was an artist, though, I believe.

The prize for Best New Quilter went to Kim Todd for "Baby Elegance".

The prize for the Most Unusual Quilt went to Juli Weishaar for her quilt, "Granpa's Ties". Look at all those ties. This was a very nice quilt.

The award for Most Improved Quilter went to Dan and Trish Nelson for their quilt, "Log Cabin". Literally.

The award for Best Pieced Quilt went to Jeanne Fischer for "Celebration". As I said before, it has BLING (and hangs straight as a stick). It hink this is an amazing quilt.

Jeanne won another award, the Chairman's Award for her quilt, "50 Shades of Red, White and Black".

Not pictured here, don't know how I missed it, was the winner of the Best Embroidered Quilt, Sherry Thompson for "Hocus Pocus". Also, "Hop To It" by Roberta Shroeder, for Best Applique. Sorry I missed photos of those two quilts.

After all those awards were given out, we drew for the Odessa Quilt Club Raffle quilt. This quilt, called "J'Adore" (French, for I Love, roughly) was machine pieced and machine quilted. Every other year, we make a raffle quilt that is hand appliqued and hand quilted.

Anyway, the winner was Dorene Frick! Does she look......

....Happy....

.....Absolutely Thrilled.....or, What?

Here she is with Kyle Thibaud, who got to draw the winning entry. Happy campers all around.

So, until next year.....happy stitching!