"Alliances" Winners Announced at Paducah
Thanks so much to all who entered, volunteered, voted and visited!   

  

By now I'm sure most of you have heard about the flooding in Paducah this past month that forced the staff of the American Quilter's Society to find new venues for many of the vendors and the exhibitions at the last minute, including our "Alliances" contest quilts, debuting at the show. Even if you didn't travel to the show this year, perhaps your quilt did (and if quilts could talk, it would have a tale to tell its grandchildren--I know I will).  

 

A big, big thank you goes out to the AQS staff and all of the folks in Paducah who made the "show go on." Your grace under (tornado-strength) pressure was incredible. We are so grateful for the opportunity to debut these stunning quilts at Paducah with the help of several of the artists.Tracey Snyder-Stone, Michael Michalski, Frank Klemens, Nita Markos, Sharon Pinka, Mary Kerr and Patricia Hobbs, thank you so much for volunteering in the exhibition! 

 

Our exhibition of 119 small powerhouses of creativity--the "Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion" 2011 AAQ contest quilts--was moved to an empty retail space, most recently a Circuit City store near Paducah's mall. Amidst a full house of vendors Handi Quilter's Mark Hyland, Quilters Newsletter's Dana Jones and I announced the contest winners on Wednesday, April 28. You can see a video of our announcement along with footage of the exhibition, row by row here. 

 

 

Congratulations to all the prize winners below and to all of the generous and talented artists who entered a quilt(s)!

Our Grand Prize winner is Jamie Fingal of Orange, California for her quilt "Soul Sisters."

Our First Place winner is Cynthia St. Charles of Billings, Montana for her quilt "We are the Quilters."

Our Second Place winner is Annedore Neumann of Mg-Wickrath, Germany for her quilt "Mind the Gap!"

Our Third Place winner is Sandra Starley of Moab, Utah for her quilt "Virginia is for Lovers"

 

Visit our website to see the honorable mention winners and a gallery of all of the quilts including audio artist's statements--new this year and made possible by our partners at VoiceQuilt (see below for information on our Mother's Day VoiceQuilt Fundraiser). 

 

New this year, we'll have Viewer's Choice Awards decided by attendees at our exhibition venues and our web viewers. Information will be handed out at the shows and voting will take place online. If you plan to visit one of the "Alliances" exhibition venues, vote online after the show here. If you won't make it to a venue this year, you can vote online today by clicking here. Prizes for the Viewer's Choice awards will be provided by our generous contest sponsors.        

Our Grand Prize winner, Jamie Fingal, will choose from any of the Handi Quilter machine quilting systems, like the HQ Sweet Sixteen Package shown above.

We are so proud and grateful to our "Alliance's contest sponsors.  In addition to the Handi Quilter grand prize, first, second and third place (as well as honorable mention) winners will all receive fabulous prize packages thanks to these generous contest sponsors:
Moda Fabrics, EZ Quilting, Simplicity Creative Group, Quilting Arts, AURIfil, AccuQuilt, Attached Inc./Mistyfuse, The Electric Quilt Company, The Quilt Show.com, Fons & Porter, Quilters Club of America, Dharma Trading Company, Riversilks, C&T Publishing, Spoonflower, Quilters Newsletter, Quilt Album Darlene Zimmerman, Westminster Fibers, FreeSpirit, Rowan, American Quilter's Society National Quilting Association Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, and VoiceQuilt.