SHEGUIANDAH—Sheguiandah quilter Judy Martin has been awarded for one of her works at an international quilting show.
“I received the Handwork Award at Quilt National,” said Ms. Martin. She received the award at Quilt National, which opened on Friday, May 26 and will be open for the summer.
“Ned (her husband) took me down for the opening of the show and to receive the award in person for my quilt, ‘Under Drifting Stars.’”
“The quilt (91 inches high and 86 inches wide) was entirely hand-stitched,” stated Ms. Martin, whose work was selected last fall for the international show. A total of 80 quilts are chosen every year for Quilt National, with 647 entries from 20 different countries, other than the United States, being submitted.
‘Under Drifting Stars’ describes the feeling you get when you pull the blankets over you at night, you dream, and this quilt is to depict that, going into that space, privacy, feeling safe and dreaming,” said Ms. Martin. This is her fourth Quilt National.
Quilt National 23 is based in Athens, Ohio, in a renovated dairy barn and runs until early September. After that the show travels for two years.
Quilt National is an exhibition that has been held every second year since the 1970s.
Ms. Martin explained previously, “what makes this show different is that you have to submit a quilt that provides a medium which reflects contemporary life today in the form of a poet/artist. In this case, I sent a large drawing, painted on cloth with iron water (that has rust particles in it) and the cloth reacts and turns into an ink black colour. I stitched over the dots with embroidery, and you can see the thread on my quilt.”
The full drawing is of sky and water with a horizon line dividing the two. The water section dots are embroidered and in the sky section, the dots are outlined.
Ms. Martin was accepted into the Quilt National in 2017 for ‘Soft Summer Gone’ and won two awards for surface design (using natural goldenrod dyes). “This quilt was purchased by the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska.”
