COMPETITIONS CATEGORIES GUIDELINES 2017

These are the Quilling Guild competitions you may enter this year:

For Categories 1 to 5, below, the Annual Challenge and the Badge Competition, voting will be
by experienced quillers. In all others, Personal Favourite, Beginners’, Juniors’ and Greetings
Card categories, members attending the AGM / Display of Quilling will be invited to vote.

N.B. Be careful not to copy designs which are not your own, particularly those that may be
subject to copyright. You will lose votes and risk the wrath of the creator or their legal
department. The only exception to this is in the Junior Competition where a published pattern
may be used as long as the author is credited.

In the General Competition: You may enter any quilling made by you and completed in the past
year, on whatever background you choose. Please remove any glass in picture frames.

You could just enter your best pieces to be considered for any/all of the categories. However,
when planning your competition entry, you may wish to aim for a specific category. This is what
the judges / members will be looking for in each:

1. Technical Ability

In this category, judges are looking for perfectly spiralling Closed Loose Coils, from the very
centre to the very edge; regular Wheatears; symmetrical Huskings; Open Coils which are open;
Solid Coils with no hole at the centre and finely Fringed Flowers. The piece may not include all
of these but should include most, and they should be perfectly executed. Judges will choose an
entry that best shows good technical ability. Alternatively, the piece might have been very
difficult to achieve; for example, very intricate or very difficult to balance.

2. Innovation

Judges will look for something they haven’t seen before. It could be, perhaps, a new design, a
new technique, or a new use for quilling – something different.

3. Colour Sense

This should be a piece where maximum visual impact has been created by the intelligent
combination of colours. Remember that pastels are easy to put together. To combine brighter,
stronger colours is more skilful, so try to put together complementary or contrasting colours and
make it work.

4. Beautiful Simplicity

Nothing complicated here. Just maximum effect with minimum quilling. Sometimes less is best.

5. Anything Goes
As long as it has a connection, however tenuous, to Quilling.

6. Personal Favourite

Sometimes, we don’t really know why we like a piece, but it creates an emotional response
which is immediate and compelling. This will be voted for by the members viewing the entries.

The Annual Challenge this year is “Create a Quilled Pendant”. The hanging mechanism for
the quilled piece will not be judged.

In the Additional Competitions, the voters are our members – the best Beginner’s Entry,
Junior Entry (in each age range), and a Greetings Card following the set theme which, for
2017, is “A Birthday Card for a Little Boy”.

Please note that any quilling submitted should demonstrate: well-made techniques; minimal glue
marks; originality as far as you know (if you found a design online, others can spot it too); apart
from ‘Anything Goes’, use of only paper/card, strips and glue, (not counting your support,
background or mount).

You may display other quillings in our ‘Bring and Show Display’, which are not competition
entries. These could be quillings you brought for the Quill Chat and Chill Day or other activities.

N.B. Competition entries must be presented by 10am and not removed until after the presentation
of awards at 3.45pm.

QUILLING GUILD COMPETITION RULES 2017

General Competition – Your quilled piece(s), of any kind, will be presented in the General
Display and then judged as best in these six categories:

Technical Ability, Innovation, Colour Sense, Beautiful Simplicity, Anything Goes and
Personal Favourite. (Please see ‘Categories Guidelines’)

1. There are no size restrictions. N.B. When judging, members will be told that size should not
be taken into account.

2. You should make use only of paper/card strips and glue, using the quilling techniques
recognised by the Guild#. You may not use any other materials (not counting the support,
background or mount). This does not apply to the ‘Anything Goes’ Category.

3. Your background can be anything from a wooden box to a greetings card, from an egg to
jewellery findings, or the quilling can be free-standing (entirely without support).

4. No glass may be included (to avoid reflection problems for the official photographers).
5. The piece(s) must have been completed during the past twelve months.

6. The care of your work is entirely your responsibility at all times.

7. The piece(s) must be entirely your own work.

8. You should be aware that, when judging the pieces, members are told, “The piece should be
an original design – as far as you know”. If recognised as not original, therefore, your work may
not receive votes. The Quilling Guild reserves the right to disqualify work which later proves not
to be original.

9. You may enter up to six pieces, of any kind, including greetings cards on any theme, into the
General Competition. You may also enter appropriate ‘Additional Competitions’ (below).

Additional Competitions – You may enter one item for the Beginners Competition, the Junior
Competition and the Greetings Card competition.

The Beginners’ Competition is only for those who started quilling during the past twelve
months. As a special incentive for new quillers, non-members of the Guild who have been
quilling for less than twelve months may enter this category free of charge in 2017.

The Junior Competition has three age categories: ‘Under 10 years’, ‘10 years to 14 years’ and
‘15 years to 18 years’. All the above rules apply, except that published patterns may be used as
long as the author is credited. As a special incentive for junior quillers, non-members of the
Guild who are under the age of 18 may enter these Junior Competition categories free of
charge in 2017.

The Greetings Card Competition theme changes each year (see Guidelines). The maximum
size of the card is 216mm x 165mm (8½” x 6½”).

There is an Annual Challenge, set each year.

The committee reserves the right to remove from the competitions any piece which does not
conform to the rules. This does not, necessarily, mean that it will be removed from the general
display.

Special Awards are also made. Either of these special awards might grace your sideboard for a
year, a high accolade for inspired quillers. Winning pieces are chosen, by selected judges, from
display or competition quillings.

The Rose Bowl is awarded for ‘an interesting or unusual quilling, not a competition entry’.

The Salver is awarded for ‘excellence in quilling in a piece of work which may or may not have
been entered in a competition’.
# A sheet of quilling techniques recognised by the Guild can be found on the Guild Blog,
‘Quilling Now!’, or is available by email from the Secretary, or by post, enclosing an A5
stamped, addressed envelope. The Quilling Guild reserves the right to publish images of
members’ work on the Guild’s website, blog, Facebook page and also in Quillers Today
magazine.