Do any of you belong to a guild that has crafted their own pipe & drape for their quilt show? We are hosting our 2nd next month and the outlay of another $1500 just irks us. I know they do the set up / take down, storage... etc... but we actually have plenty of people who help with that (well, we'd have to figure out the storage).
As the person responsible for the 2nd time for hanging the show -- the overall appearance of the pipe and drape is critically important to me. I have yet to see a wooden/pipe combination that doesn't look home-made.
Do any of you use PVC pipe? It is sturdy enough to support 2 quilts? (We would drape the PVC and then use S hooks to hang bars across both sides of the "wall" to display quilts on both of the single drape. I hope that makes sense.
Do you use something different. I, personally, don't favor the "industrial look" of metal pipe fittings -- but maybe if we painted them all black that would work.
Anyhow -- any ideas? If you do have an idea -- do you have a picture you could link to so I can see it in action?
My quilt guild (Pine Needlers) uses PVC pipe for the annual quilt show held over Memorial Day weekend. Quilts entered must have a sleeve on the back and quilts are hung on both sides of the PVC pipe. I have only been involved in taking down the quilts and, IIRC -- it's been a few years -- we use safety pins to attach the second quilt to the one that is hung using the sleeve. I'm pretty sure that one sleeve is pinned to the other so that if any damage should occur, it would be to the sleeve and not the quilt. We also hand out disposable plastic gloves for people to use if they want to touch the quilts This is a small mountain community; there aren't a lot of places to have a quilt show and ours is usually held in the Elementary School auditorium. It's a good sized place -- big enough for a basketball court -- and we fill it up with quilts! That means there is a LOT of PVC pipe to be stored and one of the members takes care of that (I think she keeps it under her home in the crawl space). The pipe is not the small stuff but the medium diameter -- maybe 2". It's put together with the standard elbows at the top and T pieces at the bottom to form the base. I'm sure it has taken years for the guild to amass the number of pieces of PVC needed to hang the show -- a lot of $ $ is invested in this stuff!! We meet on Mondays & Wednesdays and I can ask for more details if you would like. I know it's a HUGE undertaking to hang and take down the show. Quite a few of the members are elderly so the husbands are drafted to help with this. Surprisingly, they do so quite willingly :-). Even my DH has been known to help but then, I don't give him any choice -- LOL! Anyway, let me know if you would like me to get more specific info about using the PVC pipe to hang the quilts
-- e-mail is CatWom7711 at aol dot com. CiaoMeow >^;;^<
Oh, had you only asked last year you could have had our guilds pvc pipes :-)
Our guild made racks out of the heavier weight pvc pipe. The uprights were mostly the same height with a few that were taller for displaying really big quilts. The cross beams varied in width from 42" up to 110".
Some clever person would map out the show matching quilts to poles to positions so everything was hung on the proper sized rack.
From the cross beam hung a white sheet.
From either side of the cross beam hangs an S type hook and we had skinny metal poles with rubber tips on the ends that went through the hanging sleeve of the quilt.
Some upright poles also had holes drilled half way down so that two smaller (or four in the case of mini quilts) quilts could hang above each other.
The bases were wooden boxes with holes drilled in them to just fit the pipes. The sides of the base were open and two bricks slid in to weight the whole thing into place.
Finally velcro ties held the racks together at the top.
The rows could not be set up straight, but had to zig zag for stability.
We finally got to the point where it just didn't make sense anymore to do it all ourselves.
We didn't have enough members with trucks and able bodies to load everything into trucks and schlep it to the show location and take it back when it was over. Just the 250 or so bricks was an awful lot to lift and carry and transport.
We didn't have enough members able to lift and assemble during the day to set up the show as well as take it all down at the end. Most of our members work and weren't available in the daytime when set up needed to take place.
We have a show every other year so the cost of storage for two years more than covers the cost of hiring pipe and drape guys to set up the racks.
We did save our skinny hanging poles. The pipe and drape guys charge something like $4 per pole (yikes!) So we do that part and hang the quilts ourselves. The members feel much better about hanging the quilts themselves as they know the quilts will be treated right.
We also saved a bunch of the drapes to put on the floor underneath the pipes during set up. That way we don't have to worry about any quilts hitting the dirty floor.
What I do remember from the quilt rack building days was it took a lot of work and a little bit of magic to get all the printing scrubbed off the pipes. It took some time and effort to get all the pipes descretely labeled with size. It took someone building a big old rack for the storage locker so things could be stacked neatly for storage. There was a huge amount of thrift shopping that went on to find enough white sheets for drapes and then lots of begging to get them cut and hemmed to the right sizes. Oh, and they had to be labeled with their sizes too. And those bases were a TON of work to cut and drill and sand and screw together. Huge, huge project.
The guild I belonged to in Lompoc/Solvang area [Quilters ETC] built up their own displays.
We used 2" PVC pipe in 8' lengths for the cross bars, using the L bracket to attach in the vertical bars [also 8'],. We sewed black and white double wide cloth or sheets, making a tube that slipped over the cross bar. This gives a frame to the quilt hanging there. Using a doubleS hook [looks like a U with curls on the end] we put those on the bar that now allows a 8' length of 2" x 1" pine to lay on each side of the doubleS. All quilts have to have a 4" sleeve on the back - that 2"x1" pine is used in the sleeve to hang on the hooks. If the quilt is of an operable size, you can hang two or more on one of the backing panels by pins, while still using the hook to hang something ont the opposite side.
On the bases, use the T connector and adequate length of pipe to be on the floor for good support and balance. We also put down weighted bags to make sure they don't tip over, and created a "display" [chair with dolls, wash tub with small quilts, etc] at the end of each row so people would not trip over the bases,
Oh, we also used those drapes to pin the quilt tag/description/ ribbons, unless the quilt took the whole space up! It took a bit of work to lay out the show based on the entry forms sizes listed and description, and hoping when they showed up the information given [and used for layout] was purty danged close to actuality!
Enjoy, G> Do any of you belong to a guild that has crafted their own pipe & drape f= or
I'm assuming the smaller quilts are pinned to the drape... but how do you hang the large, bed size quilts? It appears like they are hung on the wooden horizontal support - -but if you do that you'd need 2 of them. Is that right?
PS -- I LOVE that red & white circles quilt! I'd love to know what that pattern is named. totally gorgeous!!!
Thanks
You can see some of them here:
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If you tilt your head you can note that there are drapes used for the smaller quilts
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Here is an action shot:
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Between shows all the supplies are in a rented storage shed, along with our supplies for Charity Day.
Mary
"Kate >Do any of you belong to a guild that has crafted their own pipe & drape for
You are echoing a lot of the concerns I have regarding this. #1 -- everybody says "Sure, I'll help" and their intentions are good -- but something always comes up the day of setup and take down.
The storage would be $100 -- which like you -- we are an every other year show -- so $2400 is LOTS more than the $1500 we are paying for the professional look of the commercial pipe and drape. We also hang the quilts like you did -- with "S" hooks and the smaller poles. This is only our 2nd show and I've done the layout both times. We do 10' walls and if a quilt is less than 80' across I try to mix smaller quilts with the larger ones. We're paying for the space and our visitors are paying to see quilts -- not black drape.
I don't know where our guild will land -- but I think they under estimate the expense (in not only time, money and man power) for trying to take this on our selves.
Who knows -- but thanks for the input.
Our guild made racks out of the heavier weight pvc pipe. The uprights were mostly the same height with a few that were taller for displaying really big quilts. The cross beams varied in width from 42" up to 110".
Some clever person would map out the show matching quilts to poles to positions so everything was hung on the proper sized rack.
From the cross beam hung a white sheet.
From either side of the cross beam hangs an S type hook and we had skinny metal poles with rubber tips on the ends that went through the hanging sleeve of the quilt.
Some upright poles also had holes drilled half way down so that two smaller (or four in the case of mini quilts) quilts could hang above each other.
The bases were wooden boxes with holes drilled in them to just fit the pipes. The sides of the base were open and two bricks slid in to weight the whole thing into place.
Finally velcro ties held the racks together at the top.
The rows could not be set up straight, but had to zig zag for stability.
We finally got to the point where it just didn't make sense anymore to do it all ourselves.
We didn't have enough members with trucks and able bodies to load everything into trucks and schlep it to the show location and take it back when it was over. Just the 250 or so bricks was an awful lot to lift and carry and transport.
We didn't have enough members able to lift and assemble during the day to set up the show as well as take it all down at the end. Most of our members work and weren't available in the daytime when set up needed to take place.
We have a show every other year so the cost of storage for two years more than covers the cost of hiring pipe and drape guys to set up the racks.
We did save our skinny hanging poles. The pipe and drape guys charge something like $4 per pole (yikes!) So we do that part and hang the quilts ourselves. The members feel much better about hanging the quilts themselves as they know the quilts will be treated right.
We also saved a bunch of the drapes to put on the floor underneath the pipes during set up. That way we don't have to worry about any quilts hitting the dirty floor.
What I do remember from the quilt rack building days was it took a lot of work and a little bit of magic to get all the printing scrubbed off the pipes. It took some time and effort to get all the pipes descretely labeled with size. It took someone building a big old rack for the storage locker so things could be stacked neatly for storage. There was a huge amount of thrift shopping that went on to find enough white sheets for drapes and then lots of begging to get them cut and hemmed to the right sizes. Oh, and they had to be labeled with their sizes too. And those bases were a TON of work to cut and drill and sand and screw together. Huge, huge project.
I'm with you on the "bit of work" to get everything laid out... quite an undertaking. The way you describe is exactly what we are thinking of doing. You find them plenty sturdy with the 2" pipe? That was one of my concerns -- but the "S" hooks are out on the ends - -not in the middle so they have the extra support of being close to the framework.
Do you rent a storage facility or does a member store them for you. For us I see that as a significant expense. Unless we could rent them out to other guilds/groups a couple of times a year, the storage would exceed the cost of rental -- and we still have all the work of transportation and set up.
Thanks for the response.
We used 2" PVC pipe in 8' lengths for the cross bars, using the L bracket to attach in the vertical bars [also 8'],. We sewed black and white double wide cloth or sheets, making a tube that slipped over the cross bar. This gives a frame to the quilt hanging there. Using a doubleS hook [looks like a U with curls on the end] we put those on the bar that now allows a 8' length of 2" x 1" pine to lay on each side of the doubleS. All quilts have to have a 4" sleeve on the back - that 2"x1" pine is used in the sleeve to hang on the hooks. If the quilt is of an operable size, you can hang two or more on one of the backing panels by pins, while still using the hook to hang something ont the opposite side.
On the bases, use the T connector and adequate length of pipe to be on the floor for good support and balance. We also put down weighted bags to make sure they don't tip over, and created a "display" [chair with dolls, wash tub with small quilts, etc] at the end of each row so people would not trip over the bases,
Oh, we also used those drapes to pin the quilt tag/description/ ribbons, unless the quilt took the whole space up! It took a bit of work to lay out the show based on the entry forms sizes listed and description, and hoping when they showed up the information given [and used for layout] was purty danged close to actuality!
Enjoy, G> Do any of you belong to a guild that has crafted their own pipe & drape > for
Kate, I moved away from that guild back in 2002, but I know one of the members stored them in their barn, wrapped up in canvas. Do you have another quilt guild nearby [or even with 100 miles] that you could rent their set-up from? What about checking with a museum or fabric shop to get some contacts, or a marketing firm? Someone might have some leads.
We had about 4 hubbies who would assist in the schlepping. But it never ceased to amaze me that so many had lots of opinions on how to plan/set up/run a quilt show, but would not be there for the set-up. Then they would stand there and criticize. sheesh!
G> I'm with you on the "bit of work" to get everything laid out... =A0 quite= an
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