Judging quilts and fixing dyes

About once or twice a year I'm asked to judge a quilt show and last week I was one of two judges for for the Canteen Quilt Challenge.
Canteen is a charity which works with kids who have cancer and their siblings. Each year they raise money by selling bandannas and this year Canteen Manawatu initiated a challenge to make quilts using Canteen bandannas. The range of quilts was extraordinary and pretty amazing considering how bright and 'in your face' the bandannas are. The quilts ranged from extremely subtle to woah! There were 4 sections to judge, the Open section, Secondary school, Primary school and Special Needs student section.
Its always difficult to choose the top 3 quilts in each category, there are always some that get left out that should really have won a prize but between the two of us we were pretty well in agreement over the prize winners.
Canteen is keen to run this challenge again and if I'm not the judge I can enter the competition. After seeing the amazing range of quilts this year, I'm looking forward to the next show.

Here are a few favourites but my camera hasn't done them justice.

Open section quilts with the winner and 2nd prizewinner in the middle at the top.

The winner of the Secondary school section

My pojagi style wallhangings recently flew back from the exhibitions in the UK and now I'm fixing the dyes by running dilture soda ash solution down the front of them. I never have any idea of how they will turn out after the dyes are fixed, as the road ash change the patterns by running wherever it wants.
This is before fixing the dyes

before fixing the dyes

Soda ash starting to spread.

I'm doing this today, as this week I'm getting new carpet in my sewing room/studio and don't want dye going everywhere.  I ripped out carpet and underlay and then found carpet tiles underneath all that. No wonder the carpet felt squishy. The old carpet is a danger to anyone who touches it as it has 20 years of pins and needles stuck in it. When rolled up, they poke out like hedgehog quills. I really wanted to have lino put down on the floor to make it safe from pins but the carpet tile backing is still stuck to the floor and impossible to remove so I've had to go for an industrial nylon carpet with very little pile.