My family survived the quilt show, but DH, DS2 and I are all very tired! The good news - I won a first place and a third place ribbon for two wall hangings. We have a Communities in Bloom competition in town, and they offered to send 2 judges to award ribbons to bed quilts and wallhangings with a floral theme. I also won 2nd prize for the Humour Quilt Challenge for my "Global Warming" quilt! Wednesday evening we loaded our van to the roof with items for the boutique. Then Thursday morning we were on hand at 8 am to help with set-up. We set up tables, put together scaffolding for the 4 hanging crews. DH was on one hanging crew for most of the day, and DS2 played runner during the morning, picking up the quilts that needed to be hung, and then getting the hanging rod for each, while we carefully pulled the quilt from its bag, unfolded it to expose the hanging sleeve, make sure it was facing the correct way. Rod was inserted, then quilt was place on a sheet and wrapped and tied. Wires were inserted into the rod, then off to the hanging crew. After a quick lunch break, DS2 and I began the task of photographing all the
400+ quilts in the show. Things went quicker when we had a third volunteer to help, but it still took from 12:30 until 6:15 to photograph all the quilts (except for 2 that were MIA). We stopped for some take-out on the way home, wolfed down dinner, then DS2 and I sat at side-by-side computers, editing photos! I started at the top of the file and he started at the bottom, taking the trickier photos of jackets, bags and table runners, to edit. We finished editing at 2 am! We prepared the final file on each computer, making sure that we hadn't missed anything, then headed for bed. DH was up at 6am, burning CDs for the show. We had printed labels ahead of time, so by 10 am we delivered 46 CDs, along with a notebook computer to run a slide show. We then photographed the 2 quilts that had finally turned up at 10:30 and headed home. I returned to the show at 1:30, and they were almost sold out of CDs so were happy to see the next bunch delivered. By 4 pm, they were asking me if DH was bringing more. I asked them to call him, but he was told they were fine until 5:45, when he was coming to pick me up. He was mobbed at the door, by purchasers, just waiting for the CD! Saturday, I spent the whole day at the show, mostly helping at the demo area. Sunday we didn't open until 11, with winners announced at 3:45. By the end of the show, we had sold 270 photo CDs for $5. There was a picture of every quilt in the show, along with a file containing all the "artist statements" that were pinned to each quilt. Many of the guild members still need a CD, so we are hoping to sell the remaining ones (we made 350). We should have some preliminary reports on the success of the show at our year end dinner on June 4th. Now I can catch up on my sleep!- posted
15 years ago