June 9th, Galway

For those of you who have no interest in quilting, you may want to skip most of this days entries because the bulk is about the International Quilt Festival of Ireland where I had 2 quilts. I will cover most of the no quilt stuff in the first paragraph or so...

Mike and I did a bit of Galway City when we ended up there due to my visit to Galway Health Center. When we had an hour or so to kill between getting our tickets for the bus and the bus leaving. We walked over to the main part of town to refill one of the phones and see a bit. We walked thru Eyre Park which is a wonderful bit of green in the middle of Galway. The castle was under scaffolding, we assume for renovations and we were not able to see it. But we were able to see St. Nicholas Church which was really lovely. Like so many of the churches in Ireland, and much of Europe, you had memorials to those who died this week, those who died 400 years ago and everything in between. I wish I had been able to get a picture of it but we didn't have camera's with us for my impromptu visit to Galway City on the 30th. 

In looking for directions to the show, I had found the winners list….I got first place in its category and $500 for Rain and an honorable mention for I Believe. I was ecstatic. But the fact that I believe got anything had me wondering….

 

I started at the Cathedral, which we had stopped at briefly that day. I knew I Believe was there. The cathedral is beautiful and RC which means it was built in the last 200 years. Mass was about to start but I found the quilts and the very sweet lady who was the quilt angle for the exhibit. I began to understand why I had won. There were some really amazing quilts including the one that won first place for I Believe (second quilt). There were also some that should not be in my guild's show no less one labeled International.

 

She gave me directions to the main show which I followed, parked and paid to get in. Extra bonus, parking was free that day. I went to find registration because I needed to first find out about picking up my quilts and also tell them that Kathleen at the cathedral really needed some brochures. I also needed a ladies room and when I came out, I came right in front of rain. It was a good feeling to have the first place, and there were some good pieces in the category, but there were only 7 of them!

So now was the time to head to the medical center that was basically across the street. I had to wait, I was totally not an emergency, but still it was Sunday morning. I am ever appreciative of the Kindle on my phone, so I sat and read for probably a half hour. The co-ordination nurse took care of me, had a doctor double check the stiches before she removed them and we talked of her upcoming NYC vacation.

 So when it was finished, I walked back to the show. The campus is really beautiful, but fairly deserted and the show not well attended, although I don't know if Saturday was better.






One of the cool things was that I saw my first electric car parking spot









The show is really uneven and some exhibits are much better than others. I won 2 prizes but my quilts were definitely not in hard categories. Rain got a 1st place but as I said, there were only 7 quilts in the category. There were a lot of entries in the category for I Believe but the quality of workmanship was really poor. I won an honorable mention but the quilt that got 1st place was very good. I was amazed that mine won honorable. It is a good quilt but the quilting is not exceptional at all, which shows how poor the competition was. I think I need to rethink the quilting. 

 

 

 The category Manley was great and had some really good quilts in it, one of which I don't understand why it didn't win It was made by a guy but maybe unless the only thing it had going for it  It was a Baltimore Album. 













 The other category that had some incredible quilts, and some real amateur ones was Under the Sea. The first place was incredible, and I really expect to see it in Houston. It had to be incredible to beat Marilyn Belford's Neptune which took an honorable mention.


 

There were some special exhibits of interest. Prison was an exhibit of quilts that were made by prison inmate. One guy had 4 including the 1st place that were really good. There was an exhibit of Hoffman Challenge big winners which was excellent and a group of winners from national shows, including Houston. I recognized a bunch of them. I hope they can inspire the Irish Quilters to push the envelope and really bring the level of quilts up for next year. They had an exhibit of hands that people from all over the world had done. My favorite was this one.

 

It Is held at the University of Galway which is an beautiful. They spread it out over several buildings of the campus. Under the Sea was in the 'Castle' while I Believe was in the Cathedral that was down the street.

While waiting to get my quilts I sat in the bar and wrote some of this and finished another. When they were closing up, it was back outside to sit under a tree and finish a book. The women I got my quilts from were Americans who were just there to help. I don't know how much American participation there is. Apparently they are planning on 2014 because there was a notice up with the hands about participating next year. I am thinking it may be a good thing for the art quilters group at NSQG. Either way I will talk to the group about entering as soon as the entry details for next year come out. The show could use the boost that the members of the art group would give it. 

I headed back to the hotel for some wine, cheese and blog catchup.