Every year, the Henderson county Parks and Rec department hosts an event for older residents called Senior Games and Silver Arts. The Senior Games hosts competitions over a couple of weeks in all kinds of games including pickleball, tennis, cornhole, ping pong, basketball, billiards, horseshoes, bowling, swimming and a lot more. The event kicked off with a catered breakfast with a full hot buffet where the participants got their t-shirts and goodie bags. The following week, the Silver Arts competition was held at Blue Ridge College. Participants turned in their entries on Monday, then were judged and the displays were set up on Tuesday. Tuesday night, participants and their guests were treated to a wonderful buffet dinner so we could view the show. The entertainment that evening was the performance competitions in singing and dance, so fun! The overall winner was a Jazzercise quintet that did a wonderful choreography to the Money Money Money song from Cabaret.

The visual arts show was small, but it is growing a bit each year. I got some photos of the displays while everyone was having dinner. There were competitions in photography, drawing, painting, jewelry making, mixed media, quilting, sewing and literary poems, and short stories.

There were only six entries in the quilting division, including two in the photo below (on the left and the red in the middle), the one on a stand in the photo above, plus three on a display to the right of the stand.

In Silver Arts, you can enter more than one project in a category, and win multiple ribbons in the same category. So, I entered three quilts into Machine Quilted and won two ribbons. Yugana Tsuru (Graceful Crane) wall hanging won first place.

I entered Scrap Dance Quadrille in Quilting and received a second place ribbon.

I also entered Spotlight, which did not place.

The first place winner in handwork was an extraordinary throw size quilt. All of these motifs were hand embroidered. Some of the leaves and wings had couched tulle adding more texture and color. It was custom quilted with meander in the backgrounds with matching color threads. It was gorgeous. I do not know who the maker was, as there were no names on the pieces, just our participant number.

I entered two things in the Handwork category. My Year of Improv Meditation won third place. The Jeweled Tree wall hanging won second place.

I entered three photographs, but none of them won. There were some really extraordinary entries in photography, drawing and painting as well as stained glass. I should have taken a lot more pictures! The winner in mixed media was this fairy library, which was fabulous. It was big, about 2 feet tall, with such detail on the bookshelves and in the flowers on the outside.

In other news, the winners of the Worldwide Quilting Day challenge were announced at the guild meeting last week. This one, called High Seas by Mary C won first place. It had applique fish and a sailboat, hand stitching and couching of the seaweeds, plus buttons of sea creatures and a lighthouse.

My friend Gail J won second place with her three view piece.

Third place was won by Byna A, whose piece is the red mushroom in the photo below.

I was thrilled to get 4th place, which came with a nice gift certificate to our local quilt shop. I immediately ran down to buy thread!

This week, I received the official release notice for the summer issue of McCall’s Quilting magazine. Now I can tell you all that one of my designs was accepted! I had to make the quilt in secret, and ship it a few weeks ago. I should get it back sometime this week. The quilt design is for their patriotic issue, and is called Freedom Waves. The magazine will publish on April 28.

It is a scrappy design with waves of blue and red stripes, with four patch variable stars set on the diagonal. It is a traditional quilt with classic blocks used in a new way. The fabrics are all Benartex from several lines including Red, White and Sweet along with Celebration and Stars of Liberty.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the magazine, and look for these beautiful red, white and blue fabrics from Benartex at your local quilt shop. Click on Red White and Sweet to order fabrics from that collection from Fat Quarter Shop.